Amnesty Calls on ‘Israel’ to Give Palestinians COVID-19 Vaccine

By Staff, Agencies

Amnesty International on Wednesday called on the apartheid “Israeli” entity to provide coronavirus vaccine doses to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, saying the entity was obligated to do so under international law.

The Palestinian Authority [PA] in the West Bank, which is home to some 2.8 million Palestinians, has not publicly asked for “Israeli” assistance in vaccine procurement.

Hamas resistance group, that is based in the besieged Gaza strip, where about two million Palestinians live, are highly unlikely to publicly coordinate with the “Israeli” entity in any vaccination effort.

But Britain-based rights group Amnesty said the entity needed to "stop ignoring its international obligations as an occupying power and immediately act to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are equally and fairly provided to Palestinians living under its occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip".

The Palestinian health ministry said on Monday that it expected to receive its first vaccine doses next month through the United Nations-backed Covax program for low and middle-income nations.

The “Israeli” entity began inoculating its citizens on Dec 19, starting with medical workers and the over-60s, and has so far injected more than a million people.

The entity’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last Saturday that he hoped that within a month, 2.25 million “Israelis” – a quarter of the population of nine million – would have received the two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab needed for optimum effect.

As of Tuesday, the entity’s health ministry had confirmed over 458,000 cases of the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic, with nearly 3,500 deaths.

The Palestinian health ministry has confirmed more than 100,000 cases in the West Bank, including 1,100 deaths.

In Gaza, there were 43,134 cases, with 404 fatalities.

The PA has said it has made contact with potential vaccine suppliers, but its health ministry said it would struggle to store the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the requisite sub-zero conditions.