The coronavirus vaccines transferred to the Palestinians are
"completely valid,"
the Israeli Ministry of Health assured on Saturday, after the Palestinian Authority canceled the agreement on these doses, which it said had expired.
In a statement, the ministry assured that the Palestinian health authorities had
"received Pfizer vaccines which were valid, with known expiration dates, accepted and which corresponded to the agreement between the two parties".
The Israeli government announced on Friday that about "
a million doses of Pfizer vaccine that are about to expire"
would be delivered to the Palestinian Authority as part of a deal. Under the agreement, the Jewish state was to receive in return the same amount of doses that were originally to be delivered to the Palestinians in the fall by the US laboratory.
But soon after, Palestinian government spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said the first batch of some 90,000 vaccines received "
did not meet the specifications provided for in the agreement
.
"
And
"Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh thus
ordered the Minister of Health to cancel the agreement," he added, without specifying the expiry date of the vaccines.
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The Palestinian government is now waiting for the Pfizer laboratory to deliver directly the vaccines scheduled for next September or October.
Thanks to a vast vaccination campaign, launched at the end of December after an agreement with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Israel has vaccinated around 55% of the population, or more than 5.1 million people, with two doses of the vaccine.
On the Palestinian side, only some 270,000 people received their two doses, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
More than 2.8 million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank and two million in the Gaza Strip.
