Israeli officials have secretly agreed to fund coronavirus vaccines for Syria in exchange for the release of an Israeli woman who was arrested for entering Syria illegally, reports The New York Times.
Under the terms of the agreement, Israel will pay Russia, a supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to send the vaccine produced by Russia to Syria.
In an interview Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu MORE did not directly deny the arrangement, saying only that no Israeli vaccines would be sent to Syria and that he was “glad” that the Israeli citizen had been liberated.
“I do not add more,” Netanyahu said after thanking the Russian president Vladimir Putin
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Syria and Israel do not have formal diplomatic relations and the two countries still dispute the Golan Heights, which Israel conquered in the 1960s. According to the official announcement of the Israeli government, the woman was released according to the Times in exchange for two Syrian shepherds captured by Israel.
The report also comes because Israel gave at least one dose of the vaccine to about half of its population. Meanwhile, only a few thousand doses have been delivered to the West Bank, where about 2.8 million Palestinians live.
The country has argued that it is not responsible for providing health care to Palestinians under the terms of the Oslo Accords, while the Palestinians have argued, according to the Times, that the Fourth Geneva Convention provides health care as one of the responsibilities of an occupying power mention.
“Israel is willing to supply vaccines to Syrians outside its borders, but at the same time does not deliver them to a huge occupied population for which they are legally responsible,” researcher Khaled Elgindy, a one-sided adviser to the Palestinian leadership, told the newspaper said. ‘It seems like it’s sending a message that they’re deliberately trying to evade their legal responsibility to look after the welfare of that occupied population.
The Hill reached out to the Israeli Foreign Ministry for comment.