A man receives a COVID-19 vaccine at a health center in Rehovot, central Israel, on January 14, 2021. Credit – Gil Cohen Magen – Xinhua News Agency / Getty Images
Israel, which has already vaccinated more than 2 million of its citizens, is increasing COVID-19 shots to 250,000 a day, meaning most Israelis over the age of 16 are on track to have two doses by the end of February.
But while the country is winning accolades for the global leading pace of vaccine deployment, its government is facing increasing criticism for excluding millions of Palestinians from the program.
About 75% of civilians over 60 have been vaccinated so far, including Palestinian (or “Arab Israeli”) citizens of Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, and Israelis living in illegal settlements on the West Bank.
However, there are no more than 4.5 million Palestinians living under Israel’s direct or indirect military control in the West Bank and Gaza. Gerard Rockenshlaub, head of the World Health Organization’s Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told TIME on January 13 that “unequal access to essential vaccines is nowhere near as visible as in this particular context.”
Israel has a “duty” to vaccinate Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority said in a statement issued on January 10. It does not mean racial discrimination against the Palestinian people and a denial of their right to health care. ‘
In a statement issued on January 14, the UN human rights body also called on Israel to ensure rapid and equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine for the Palestinian people, in line with its responsibilities as an occupying power under Geneva. convention.
The successful vaccination of Israel can be attributed to a combination of its small size, its strong public health care system and the early acquisition of vaccines. But critics also point out that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is facing a criminal trial on three criminal charges and months of protests over his handling of the economy – needs a political victory ahead of an unprecedented fourth election in two years planned to to take place in March.
Here’s what you need to know about Israel’s vaccination program and how its reputation and effectiveness can be undermined if Palestinians are not also vaccinated:
Why was Israel’s vaccination so successful?
As of January 14, more than 20% of Israeli citizens had the chance. The United Arab Emirates next reached about 10% of the population, while the United Kingdom, USA and Denmark hovered around the 2% point. Vaccination-hesitant countries like France, where polls indicate that only 40% of people plan to get the sting, are much further behind.
Vaccination of vaccines based on misinformation and conspiracy theories was also a problem in Israel. But the Ministry of Health’s public information campaign – including Netanyahu’s first live coverage of the country on live television – and an outreach to leaders of minority communities such as ultra-Orthodox rabbis, helped create a consensus, the chief medical officer said. Israeli Army Officer (IDF) Col. Dr. Tomer Koler. “Ultimately, I think all the groups will be vaccinated because they want to be,” he tells TIME.
Cooperation between the military and Israel’s strong public health care system is another factor in the effectiveness of Israel’s COVID-19 response, Koler said. “The IDF and the medical corps and the home order are intertwined with civilian life in Israel,” he says, adding that the IDF has called on and trained 700 reservist medics to support government-funded health care providers with the program. The small geographical size of Israel – barely larger than New Jersey at the pre-1967 borders – also helps as the transportation of the Pfizer shot, which must be kept at 75 degrees Celsius (about 103 degrees Fahrenheit).
How did Israel get so many vaccines so quickly?
Netanyahu revealed on January 7 that the Israeli government had entered into an agreement with the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Under the agreement, Israel will receive ten million doses of BioNtech-Pfizer vaccine in exchange for sharing anonymous biometric data about who receives it and how it affects them, Politico reports. The Israeli public broadcaster also reported that the government paid more than other countries for BioNtech-Pfizer and Modern vaccines – at an average of $ 47 per person for the two-dose vaccination. The Washington Post reported in December that the US paid Pfizer / BioNTech $ 19.50 per dose while the EU paid $ 14.76.
Despite Israel’s economic woes, the reported premium suffered a slight setback. “Maybe it was more expensive, but it was worth paying for,” said lawmaker Nitzan Horowitz, leader of Israel’s leftist Meretz party, “I think that’s what we all agree on.” Where Horowitz does not agree, it is Israel’s responsibility: it is ‘our moral obligation’ to vaccinate Palestinians in the West Bank, because he is ‘our moral obligation’. The Israeli rights organization Rabbis for Human Rights similarly argued that Israel had a ‘moral imperative’ to vaccinate Palestinians, especially in Gaza.
Is Israel responsible for vaccinating Palestinians?
According to the UN, this is the case. Israel first occupied the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors. His army withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – which has been ruled by the militant group Hamas since 2007 – but he still keeps the movement of goods in and out of the area via an air, land and sea blockade.
When Gazans were under full lockout this summer, for example, Israel limited fuel supplies in response to rockets launched by Hamas against Israel. It amounts to “collective punishment” from Palestinians, says Miriam Marmur, spokeswoman for the Tel Aviv-based rights group Gisha, “which plunged people into darkness most of the day.”
Some commentators – and Israel’s coordinator of government activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, COGAT – have argued that Israel is not responsible for the health of Palestinians because of the Oslo Accords, the historic agreements Israel signed with the Palestinian Liberation Authority in the early 1990s. has, the Palestinian Authority oversees public health under the principles of self-determination.
“It is important to mention that Israel has refused any request for medical assistance that has reached its threshold,” a COGAT spokesman told Al Jazeera for a story published on January 13. Until their public statement on the matter on January 10, Palestinian officials made conflicting allegations as to whether or not they had asked Israel for vaccinations.
But Israeli authorities citing the Oslo Accords are an example of how they do it “at ease,” Marmur says. “In fact, Israel has undermined the ability of the Palestinian Authority and also the de-facto Hamas authorities in Gaza to actually assume full responsibility for health, as stipulated in the Oslo Accords.” United Nations human rights activists say the Oslo Accords ‘must be interpreted and applied in accordance with international law and cannot deviate from the broad protection’, according to the January 14 OCHA Declaration.
The exclusion of Palestinians from Israel’s vaccination program reflects a system of apartheid, says Dr. Mustafa Al Barghtoy, a doctor and former Palestinian minister who serves on the Palestinian health committee dealing with COVID-19. The injustice is highlighted by the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers are eligible to receive the vaccine, he says, while their Palestinian neighbors do not. Meanwhile, Israel will vaccinate prison guards, but not the Palestinian political prisoners who supervise them, he adds.
How urgent is the need for vaccinations in the Palestinian territories?
In total, more than 160,000 Palestinians in the occupied territories have tested positive for the coronavirus since March 2020, with more than 1,700 deaths associated with COVID-19, according to US figures. But the numbers may not tell the whole story: among those tested, the infection rate in the occupied territories is 30%, compared to 7.4% in Israel, Barghtoy says.
Many feared that COVID in particular would destroy the Gaza Strip – one of the world’s most densely populated areas with a poorly equipped health system. As of January 14, the Gaza Ministry of Health has reported nearly 47,000 cases and 464 deaths due to the virus. This is an alarming number, but still lower per capita than the more than half a million cases reported by the Ministry of Health on 12 January.
The impact has been mitigated in part by the “tremendous” efforts of the international community to advance Gaza’s health system, says the WHO’s Rockenschaub This includes significantly increasing the capacity of the intensive care unit in the strip and using the necessities such as oxygen and fans. Vaccinations are, after all, an urgent source of concern. “The sooner we can get into the vaccination and protection of essential health workers, the better,” he says, “because we see that a significant number of the health workers are infected.”
Before the PA formally stated that Israel was responsible for vaccinating Palestinians, the WHO informally requested Israel to provide vaccinations to vaccinate Palestinian health workers at the front. Israel refused the request due to shortages of vaccines for its own citizens.
Can Israel achieve herd immunity without vaccinating Palestinians?
As the IDF moves across the West Bank, and about 130,000 Palestinians working in the settlements or Israel, it is not counterproductive to make the vaccine available to achieve herd immunity, Barghotoy says.
The Palestinian Authority has made efforts to introduce vaccinations independent of Israel. The Ministry of Health announced on January 11 that it had approved the Russian Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine in emergencies for use in areas it administers under limited Palestinian self-government; it is also said that he has entered into an agreement with AstraZeneca for vaccines that he will receive at the end of February. In addition, the first consignment of vaccines in the WHO’s COVAX program could be available as early as February.
The next few weeks they will be forced to wait. “Our biggest concern is that we can only overcome this pandemic in solidarity and in a cooperative spirit,” says Rockenschaub, “we will either succeed or we will fail together.”