JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel has postponed plans to vaccinate Palestinians working in the country and its settlements in the West Bank until further notice on Friday.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates the day-to-day affairs with the Palestinian Authority, attributes the postponement to ‘administrative delays’, adding that a new start date for the campaign will be set later.
The vaccination program would begin Sunday at the West Bank crossings to Israel and Israeli industrial zones.
Such vaccinations could have drawn criticism of Israel for not sharing significant amounts of vaccines with Palestinians under Israeli control in the West Bank and those in the Gaza Strip – even if Israel managed to carry out one of the fastest explosions in the world. start.
Israel has also announced plans to share excess vaccines with distant allies in Africa, Europe and Latin America, but the decision has been frozen by legal questions. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with leaders from Denmark and Austria, said the three countries would join forces in the fight against COVID-19 with an investment in research and the introduction of vaccines.
About 100,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank work in Israel. The PA has obtained enough doses for just 6,000 of its people, meaning the vast majority of the estimated 7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will remain unvaccinated.
The West Bank was placed under new restrictive measures last week to curb the rise in infections.