“[Israel] is on track to vaccinate 25 percent of its population by the end of January and every Israeli by the end of March. This includes about 600,000 settlers, who, according to international law, are illegally living in the West Bank, but who hold Israeli passports. They will receive the vaccine in the coming days while about three million Palestinians living in the same area will not. Israel has also ordered that vaccines be provided for prison guards, but not for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners.”
Israel has a moral obligation to supply vaccines in the West Bank and Gaza, given International law and its commitment in the Oslo accords to work with the Palestinians to combat epidemics. Instead, it has so far dismissed a request by the World Health Organization and the Palestinian Authority to provide up to 10,000 vaccine doses for Palestinian frontline workers.
