JERUSALEM – When a young Israeli woman was released in Syria this week after being arrested for illegally crossing into Syria, the official story was that she had been the beneficiary of a straight prisoner exchange. In exchange for her freedom, the Israeli government announced, she was exchanged for two Syrian shepherds captured by the Israelites.
But if this agreement between two hostile states, which had never shared diplomatic relations, sounded too quick and easy, it was. In secret, Israel has in fact also agreed to a much-controversial ransom: the financing of an unknown number of coronavirus vaccines for Syria, according to an official familiar with the content of the negotiations.
Under the agreement, Israel will pay Russia, which mediated it, to send Russian-made Sputnik V vaccines to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the official said. Israel has given at least one vaccine shot to nearly half of its population of 9.2 million, while Syria – which is now entering its 11th year of civil war – has yet to begin vaccinating.
The Israeli government declined to comment on the vaccine aspect of the deal, while a Syrian state-run news agency, the Syrian Arab News Agency, denied that vaccines were part of the arrangement. Asked about the vaccines in a television interview on Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu evaded the question, saying only that no Israeli vaccines were being sent to Syria.
“I’m glad we brought the woman,” he said. Netanyahu said. He thanked President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and said: “I do not want to add more.”
The agreement is a rare moment of awkward cooperation between two states that have waged several wars and still challenge the sovereignty of a country, the Golan Heights, which Israel conquered from Syria in 1967.
It also highlights how vaccines are increasingly a hallmark of international diplomacy. And that reflects a big and growing difference between rich states, like Israel, that have made significant progress with coronavirus vaccines and may soon return to a kind of normality – and poor ones, like Syria, that have not.
Among Palestinians, news reports about the Israel-Syria agreement have raised frustrations about the low amount of vaccines Israel provides to Palestinians living in the occupied territories. Israel provided only a few thousand vaccines to the approximately 2.8 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank. Last week, the Israeli government briefly delayed the delivery of a first batch of vaccines to Gaza, where nearly two million people live.
Israel maintains that the Oslo Accords release it from the responsibility to provide Palestinian health care. But rights activists and Palestinians cite the Fourth Geneva Convention, which obliges an occupying force to coordinate with local authorities to maintain public health within an occupied territory.
Israeli officials have said they should vaccinate their own population before going to the Palestinians. But the Syrian agreement sends a different message, says Khaled Elgindy, a researcher and former adviser to the Palestinian leadership.
“Israel is prepared to vaccinate Syrians outside its borders, but at the same time does not give it to a huge occupied population for which they are legally responsible,” he said. Elgindy said. “It seems to be sending a message that they are deliberately trying to evade their legal responsibility to look after the welfare of the occupied population.”
Among the Israelis, the exchange of prisoners expressed concern about how a civilian could cross the highly moderate and tense border with Syria that had not been detected by the Israeli authorities.
The woman (23) crossed into Syria near Syria on February 2 without being noticed by Israeli or Syrian forces. Her name cannot currently be published according to court order.
Israel has learned that she only disappeared when her friends informed the police that she was missing. She entered Syrian detention only after a Syrian citizen who approached her realized she was Israeli and called the police.
Israel then asked Russia – a Syrian ally with a strong military presence in the country – for help in mediating her release. Russia and Israel have coordinated during similar episodes in the past. In 2016, Russia helped mediate the return of an Israeli tank seized by Lebanon in 1982 in Lebanon. In 2019, Moscow facilitated the return of the body of an Israeli soldier who died during the same collision, Zachary Baumel.
The woman grew up in an ultra-Orthodox family in a settlement on the West Bank, and is said to have had a history of entering Israel’s Arab neighbors illegally – once in Jordan and once in Gaza. Both times she was apprehended, returned, interrogated and warned by Israeli forces not to do it again.
Israeli negotiators tried to act swiftly to avoid the recurrence of the crisis that followed the disappearance of Avera Mengistu in Gaza, a man with a history of mental illness who marched into the line in 2014 and has since been ousted by Hamas , the militant, was detained. group, which regularly increases the price for its release.
Mr Netanyahu spoke twice directly with Mr Netanyahu. Putin spoke, while Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat communicated with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev.
The Syrians first demanded the release of two Syrian residents of the Golan Heights who were locked up in Israel, but the arrangement broke down after it became apparent that the two did not want to return to Syria.
Israel then offers the release of the two shepherds, and at some point in negotiations the possibility of vaccines is raised.
The Israeli cabinet voted on Tuesday to agree to the terms of the agreement, the same day that the 23-year-old was flown to Moscow. After further negotiations between Israeli and Russian officials, she was returned to Israel on Thursday.
In Moscow, officials did not offer confirmation of such an arrangement by late Saturday, and Russian news media only carried reports referring to Israeli publications.
But the Russian government has been using its vaccine for months in diplomacy from Latin America to the Middle East. Last Thursday, Mr. Putin’s special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, suggested that Russia deliver its Sputnik V vaccine to Syria in an interview with the Tass news agency.
Patrick Kingsley reports from Jerusalem, Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow. Hwaida Saad reported on Beirut and Carol Sutherland from Moshav Ben Ami, Israel.