Israel is celebrating an impressive and record-breaking vaccination campaign, after giving coronavirus injections to more than a tenth of the population. But Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli-occupied Gaza can only watch and wait.
As the world expands what is already on its way to becoming a highly uneven vaccination drive – with people in the wealthiest nations being vaccinated first – the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories provides a clear example of the divide.
Israel transports lots of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine to the depths of the West Bank. But they are distributed only to Jewish settlers, and not to the approximately 2.7 million Palestinians who live around them, who may have to wait weeks or months.
“I don’t know how, but should there be a way to make us a priority too?” said Mahmoud Kilani, a 31-year-old sports trainer from the Palestinian city of Nablus. “Who cares about us? I don’t think anyone is stuck on that issue. “
Two weeks after the start of its vaccination campaign, Israel is administering more than 150,000 doses a day, totaling the initial vaccines for more than 1 million of its 9 million citizens – a greater proportion of the population than anywhere else.
Vaccine centers have been set up in sports stadiums and central squares. People over 60, health professionals, caregivers and high-risk populations are given priority, while younger, healthier people who enter clinics are sometimes rewarded with surplus stock to avoid wasting unused bottles.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis that the country could be the first to emerge from the pandemic. In addition to a highly advanced healthcare system, part of the reason for the speed may be the economy. A health ministry official said the country paid $ 62 a dose, compared to the $ 19.50 the United States is paying.
Meanwhile, the cashless Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-government in the territories, is rushing to get vaccines. An official suggested, perhaps with optimism, that the shots could arrive in the next two weeks.
However, when asked about a deadline, Ali Abed Rabbo, director general of the Palestinian health ministry, estimated that the first vaccines would likely arrive in February.
This would be through a partnership led by the World Health Organization called Covax, which aims to help the poorest countries, which has pledged to vaccinate 20% of Palestinians. However, vaccines for Covax have not yet obtained WHO “emergency use” approval, a precondition for starting distribution.
Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the WHO Jerusalem office, said it could be “in the early mid-2021” before Covax vaccines are available for distribution in the Palestinian territories.
The rest of the doses are expected to come through agreements with pharmaceutical companies, but none has apparently been signed so far.
Despite the delay, the official has not officially asked for Israel’s help. Coordination between the two sides was interrupted last year after the Palestinian president severed security ties for several months.
But Rabbo said “sessions” with Israel were held. “So far, there is no agreement and we cannot say that there is anything practical in this regard,” he said.
Israeli officials have suggested that they could supply surplus vaccines to the Palestinians and claim that they are not responsible for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, pointing to interim agreements in the 1990s that required the authority to observe international vaccination standards.
These agreements provided for a more complete peace agreement within five years, an event that never occurred. Almost three decades later, Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights groups have accused Israel of shirking moral, humanitarian and legal obligations as an occupying power during the pandemic.
Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, said that Palestinian efforts so far to seek vaccines elsewhere “do not absolve Israel of its ultimate responsibility to the Palestinians under occupation”.
The disparities could cause Israelis to return to some form of normalcy in the first three months of this year, while Palestinians remain trapped by the virus. This could have a negative impact on Israel’s goal of collective immunity, as thousands of West Bank Palestinians work in Israel and in the settlements, which could keep infection rates high.
In Gaza, an impoverished enclave under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, the deadline may be even longer than in the West Bank. The Islamic rulers on the strip, Hamas, have failed to contain the virus and are enemies of Israel and political rivals to the Palestinian Authority.
Salama Ma’rouf, head of Hamas’s press office in Gaza, estimated that vaccines would arrive “within two months”, adding that there was coordination with WHO and the Palestinian Authority.
Heba Abu Asr, 35, a Gaza resident, shuddered when asked how she felt about other people getting the vaccine first. “Are you seriously trying to compare us to Israel or any other country?” she asked. “We cannot find work, food or drink. We are under threat all the time. We don’t even have what is necessary for life. “