Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh is appealing to the international community to deliver promised vaccines against COVID-19.
His office says the prime minister on Tuesday urged friendly countries and companies, as well as the World Health Organization, to "fulfill their obligations to us."
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A Palestinian medic receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in the West Bank city of Bethlehem
(Photo: AP)
Shtayyeh says United Nations deliveries expected this month through COVAX, the WHO-backed program to assist poorer nations, are now delayed.
The virus has surged through the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Israel has come under significant international criticism for giving its own population vaccines without doing the same for Palestinians, despite sending some 5,000 vaccine doses to the PA from its own stockpile.
And while Israel this week began to vaccinate Palestinian laborers who work in the country, that effort will only cover a small percentage of the roughly 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel says that under the Oslo Accords, it is not responsible for vaccinating the Palestinian populations in those areas. Human rights groups say Israel remains an occupying power with an obligation to assist the Palestinians.
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A medic prepares to administer the coronavirus vaccine to former Palestinian health minister Jawad Tibi
(Photo: Reuters)
Meanwhile, the PA's leadership has come under heavy criticism for its decision to divert some of its tiny stockpile of coronavirus vaccines to senior officials, soccer players and others, despite saying repeatedly that its first vaccines would go to medical workers and elderly patients, who are at greatest risk of severe illness or death.
This controversy has fed into long-standing concerns about corruption within the PA as it struggles to respond to the ever-worsening outbreak.