Under pressure from the United Nations to facilitate the vaccination of Palestinians against Covid-19, Israel indicated on Sunday January 31 its intention to provide 5,000 doses to its neighbor, a measure deemed "
symbolic
".
In recent weeks, UN officials, NGOs and doctors have urged the Jewish state, whose vaccination campaign is one of the fastest in the world, to help Palestinians get immunized.
"
I confirm that we will provide 5,000 vaccines to the medical teams of the Palestinian Authority,
" a spokeswoman for the Israeli Ministry of Defense told AFP on Sunday, specifying that these vaccines would be drawn from Israeli stocks.
Israel has ordered a total of 14 million doses - capable of immunizing seven million people because the vaccination is done in two doses - from the Pfizer and Moderna laboratories.
And since the launch of its vaccination campaign at the end of December, the Jewish state has vaccinated more than three million people, or a third of its population, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health.
In parallel with this vaccination campaign, the Israeli authorities have imposed a third national lockdown since the end of December.
Russian vaccine
In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory under the control of the Islamists of Hamas, and in the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas sits, containment measures are also in place and the population is awaiting the start of the vaccination campaign.
The Palestinian Authority has signed various contracts for the purchase of vaccines capable of immunizing approximately 70% of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza.
The first doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V are also expected in the coming days in the West Bank.
“
These 5,000 (Israeli) doses will not help us, they will only (immunize) 2,500 people.
It is a symbolic gesture
, "reacted to AFP a senior Palestinian official requesting anonymity.
In recent weeks, the Palestinian Authority had asked the Jewish state to vaccinate the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel - a campaign that has since been started - and lamented that it did not receive a large amount of vaccines from Israel.
The new UN coordinator for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, last week called on Israel to facilitate the vaccination of Palestinians against Covid-19, citing "
Israel's obligations under international law
".
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Israel has an "
obligation
" as an "
occupying
"
power
to "
provide
" vaccines to the 2.8 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the two million inhabitants of the strip. of Gaza, under Israeli blockade.
The Jewish state, which has not specified the reasons for providing 5,000 vaccines to the Palestinian Authority, is already vaccinating Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the eastern part of the holy city it annexed in 1967.
