© Provided by The Independent Israel has refused a request from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to immediately make Covid-19 vaccines available to Palestinian medical workers to avert a health disaster, citing shortages of the jabs for their own citizens.
The refusal comes amid growing criticism from rights groups of the massive discrepancy between the vaccine rollout in Israel and the occupied West Bank or Gaza, given Israel's legal obligations as an occupying power.
Israel has broken global records for the speediness of its inoculation programme which started on 20 December and by Friday has seen 1.7 million Israelis - or over 18 percent of the total population - vaccinated.
While Israel has provided vaccines for Palestinians living in east Jerusalem, by contrast no citizen or medic has received jabs among the nearly five million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, where the battered and impoverished healthcare systems are struggling to cope with the soaring case load.
Citing the Fourth Geneva Convention, rights groups including Amnesty have accused Israel of "institutionalised discrimination" and of ignoring its international obligations as an occupier to immediately ensure Covid-19 vaccines are equally and fairly distributed to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
Gerald Rockenschaub, the head of the WHO's mission to the Palestinians, told The Independent the UN body had requested that Israel help provide Covid-19 jabs to cover Palestininan health workers: nearly 8,000 Palestinian medics have reportedly been infected by the virus, impacting their coronavirus response.
He said that Israel had declined the request for now, citing issues with shortages for their own population.
Health officials within the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA) told The Independent they had also lodged a similar request, asking Israel to sell them 10,000 jabs for their medics to avert a health disaster during the month-long wait for vaccines from the WHO's COVAX programme and vaccine companies.
"We have tried to explore whether an unusual batch of vaccines could be made available from the Israeli side in light of the substantial discrepancy [in inoculations]," the WHO's Rockenschaub told The Independent.
"We have a substantial number of health workers that are infected. It would make a big difference to have the 10,000 jabs to ensure that the healthcare system doesn't collapse and can operate," he added.
"The feedback is that [Israel] have shortages of their own and they can't provide any until a later stage," he said.
He added it "should be in the interest of Israel" to put every effort into ensuring the Palestinian population is adequately vaccinated and that the discrepancy does not continue. He cited in particular the daily movement of at least 140,000 Palestinian workers between the territories and Israel as one reason why the inoculation of the Palestinian population was an Israeli public health concern.
"Over 1.5 million Israelis have received their vaccines while on the other side zero have, except for those Palestinians living in East Jerusalem," he added.
"We see people dying from coronavirus every day on both sides. It is essential to ensure global solidarity and access to vaccines for everybody because no one is safe until everyone is protected."
More than 146,000 Palestinians have been infected with coronavirus and over 1550 have died. On 31 December, 15 Covid-related deaths were reported in Gaza, the highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic according to the WHO.
Meanwhile there have been more than 470,000 cases recorded in Israel with over 3,500 deaths.
Israel has received worldwide praise for the efficiency of its vaccination programme and is on track to becoming the first country to completely inoculate its population.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday that with the latest procurement of additional Pfizer vaccines they would be able to inoculate all their citizens over the age of 16 by the end of March.
© Provided by The IndependentPeople wait to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine at a centre in Israel, which has has seen a surge in cases (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)AP
The Israelis have vehemently denied accusations of discrimination and Israeli officials have blamed the Palestinian Authority for not seeking cooperation with the Israeli government to procure and distribute the vaccines.
Video: In this file photo taken on December 31, 2020 a healthcare worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at a large vaccination centre open by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in the Israeli coastal city. (France 24)
In this file photo taken on December 31, 2020 a healthcare worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at a large vaccination centre open by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in the Israeli coastal city.
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Israel's health minister Yuli Edelstein reportedly said last week that while it was in their interest to ensure that the spread of the virus was halted among the Palestinians, Israel's first responsibility was to its own citizens.
The country's Deputy Health Minister Yoav Kisch said Thursday that they may consider offering any vaccine surplus to the PA at a later stage.
Israeli commentators, meanwhile, have argued that Israel has no obligation to vaccinate the Palestinians and have even dismissed media reports on the discrepancy as anti-Semitic attacks.
But 18 Israeli, Palestinian and international health and human rights organisations penned a statement last month highlighting those legal and moral obligations.
The communique cites the Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which provides that the occupier has the duty of ensuring "the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics".
It is both a legal and a moral obligation
Hadas Ziv, director of ethics and content at Physicians for Human Rights Israel
They said this duty for Israel includes providing support for the purchase and distribution of quality vaccines to the Palestinian population under its control.
Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories since 1967 and has imposed a crippling 13-year long blockade on Gaza, after the Hamas militant group violently seized control of the tiny strip which is home to nearly two million people.
In Gaza, the ravaged healthcare system is suffering from chronic shortages of electricity and all medicines because of those restrictions. The WHO's Rockenschaub said that the agency had provided an 50 additional Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds but said the Gazans were struggling amid medical staff shortages and ancient oxygen supplies systems that urgently needed replacing.
Bar the Egypt-Gaza crossing, Israel controls all the borders, and so imports, into the Palestinian territories. The Palestinians also lack large enough refrigerating facilities to store the vaccines.
© Provided by The IndependentAn Israeli woman receives a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a drive in vaccination centre in the northern Israeli city of Haifa (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)AP
All of this means the Palestinian vaccine programme is inextricably tied to coordination with and assistance from the Israelis.
The WHO's Rockenschaub said that they were already in talks with the Israeli ministry of health and COGAT, the Israeli military unit that deals with civilian needs in the West Bank and Gaza, to ensure the smooth delivery and distribution of vaccines when they do arrive.
Medical and rights groups have gone a step further urging Israel to immediately ensure quality vaccines be provided to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and control, saying failure to do so was part of systemic abuses.
"Israel's responsibility stems from its prolonged occupation and control of almost all aspects of lives in the occupied Palestinian territories, " said Hadas Ziv, director of ethics and content at Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI).
"It cannot expect a weakened and impoverished PA to handle with its limited resources a public health crisis that challenges even developed countries. It is both a legal and a moral obligation."
Amnesty International called the denial of vaccines to Palestinians "institutionalised discrimination", saying the unfair distribution of vaccines could "hardly be a better illustration of how Israeli lives are valued above Palestinian ones."
"It goes deeper than this," Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director Saleh Higazi told The Independent.
"This the structural denial of rights for the Palestinians. We want that structure to be dismantled," he added.
Palestinian health officials told The Independent that the PA had verbally asked Israel to sell it 10,000 doses of vaccines to cover its frontline workers as it scrambled to get enough doses for the entire population.
The WHO-led Covax global initiative, to ensure eventual COVID-19 vaccines reach those in greatest need, will provide 2 million doses of vaccines free of charge to the PA to cover 20 percent of the Palestinian population.
© Provided by The IndependentA Palestinian health worker takes a swab sample from a man to test for COVID-19 coronavirus in the West Bank village of Dura, southwest of Hebron (Photo by HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
Two PA health officials told The Independent they have confirmed the purchase of an additional two million doses of the OxfordAstraZeneca vaccine, but the initial delivery of the first batch of any of these vaccines is not expected before the end of February, possibly even the beginning of March.
The PA officials said the PA needs an additional two million doses on top of this, to ensure sufficient immunity, and added that they are still in negotiations with multiple companies.
"It is important to have coordination between Israel and Palestine. There are no proper borders, people move between the two, it is problematic," said Ali Abed Rabbo, director general of the PA's ministry of health bureau.
"The principle of vaccination and herd immunity is needed to stop this pandemic that requires all parts of the world to work together."