JERUSALEM (AP) – The World Health Organization has raised “concerns” about the uneven distribution of vaccines against the coronavirus in Israel, which has given vaccines to more than 20% of its population, and in the occupied territories, where the Palestinians have not yet received, an officer said Monday.
Human rights groups say Israel has a responsibility as an occupying power to supply vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel says it has no such obligation and that its own population – including Arab citizens – is the priority, but that at some point it may consider sharing its supplies.
The Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of “racism” for not sharing its vaccines, but has not made any formal requests to Israel and says it is purchasing its own supplies through a WHO program and agreements with private companies.
The dispute reflects global inequality in access to vaccines, as rich countries absorb most of the doses, leaving the poorest countries even further behind in combating the economic and public health effects of the pandemic. It also emerged as another flashpoint in the decades-long conflict in the Middle East, even when the virus wreaked havoc on both sides.
“We raised a number of public health issues and equity issues about this uneven distribution of vaccines or unequal access to vaccines,” Dr. Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the WHO office for Palestinian territories, told the Associated Press.
“We have discussions with Israelis at various levels, also at the highest levels of our organization, trying to explore the option, whether Israel could consider delivering vaccines” to Palestinians, he said, adding that the “main target” would be health professionals from the front line.
Israel boasts one of the world’s first and most successful vaccination campaigns, with about 2 million doses administered since the end of December in a population of more than 9 million. The campaign includes Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians living in annexed East Jerusalem.
Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war, territories that Palestinians want for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and two years later, the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces. The Palestinian Authority administers parts of the occupied West Bank and helps coordinate health care in Gaza.
Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said last week that Israel has been “cooperating closely” with the Palestinian Authority since the beginning of the crisis and may consider sharing vaccines at some point. “But we have to understand that our main responsibility is to vaccinate citizens of the state of Israel,” he told the AP.
Israeli and international human rights groups say Israel is required to provide vaccines in accordance with international laws related to military occupation. Critics point to the fact that hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers in the West Bank are eligible for the vaccine because they are Israeli citizens, while the 2.5 million Palestinians living in the territory are not.
“Nothing can justify today’s reality in parts of the West Bank, where people on one side of the street are getting vaccines, while people on the other are not, based on whether they are Jews or Palestinians,” Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch said in an announcement. “Everyone in the same territory must have equal access to the vaccine, regardless of their ethnicity.”
According to the Oslo agreements signed in the 1990s, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for health care in the territories it administers, while the two sides must work together to fight epidemics.
The Palestinian Authority expects to receive its first doses in the coming weeks through a WHO program known as COVAX, which aims to obtain vaccines for countries in need, but has been slow to get off the ground. Rockenschaub said the Palestinians would receive their first doses of the program as early as February “under ideal circumstances”.
The Palestinian Authority’s reluctance to publicly ask for Israel’s help may reflect concerns that doing so would expose it to claims by Israel and others that it was unable to support its own people or that it was not ready for the creation of a state.
Rockenschaub declined to comment on the political dispute, but said that from a public health perspective, Israel has an interest in getting the Palestinians vaccinated.
“It will be very difficult to guarantee full protection for the Israeli population and, at the same time, not to ensure that the proper vaccines are made on the Palestinian side,” he said, pointing to the approximately 140,000 Palestinians who regularly cross into Israel to work.
He added that it is important to ensure that Palestinian medical workers are adequately protected “so that their health care system does not collapse”.