Israhell tries to give Palestinians bad vaccines, and take their good vaccines

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Israel to transfer more than 1 million Covid-19 shots which are due to expire to Palestinian Authority
https://www.rt.com/news/526941-israel-palestine-covid19-vaccines/

The new Israeli government has announced that it will transfer between 1.1 and 1.4 million short-dated Pfizer shots to Palestine but in return will receive a shipment originally meant for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in autumn.

In a joint statement on Friday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's office and that of the health and defense ministries said that an agreement had been reached with the PA to share more than a million short-dated shots.

The jabs, which Israel no longer needs as it has sufficient supplies already, will be transferred to the PA, in an agreement signed on Friday. The number of shots is put at around 1.1 to 1.4 million, and the statement adds that "the validity of all vaccine doses delivered to the PA will expire soon."

delivered to the PA, Israel will take delivery of a shipment originally intended for Palestine in September-October. The Pfizer shipment in autumn contains the same number of shots as Israel is sending to Palestine. No date is given for the first delivery from Israel.

Israel had previously launched a program earlier in the year to vaccinate Palestinian laborers working in Israel.

Around 30% of Palestinians have received at least one vaccine shot to date, according to Palestinian officials, quoted by Reuters. The territory has received shots from a number of sources, including China, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and the global COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative.

Nearly 60% of Israelis have been vaccinated with two shots, and school-aged children are now being vaccinated.




'Expiry date too close': Palestinian Authority scraps deal for Israel to swap 1 million Covid-19 vaccine doses
https://www.rt.com/news/527007-palestine-israel-pfizer-deal/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_campaign=chrome

Doses of Pfizer's Covid vaccine pledged by Israel were already too close to their expiration date when deliveries started on Friday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said, cancelling the deal to exchange 1 million shots.

Earlier the two had agreed that Israel would swiftly transfer its short-dated doses of the jab to Palestine so that it could speed up its lagging vaccination drive. In exchange, the Jewish state was to receive the fresh ampules of the vaccine that Pfizer had been scheduled to deliver to the PA in autumn.

But when the first shipment of 90,000 doses arrived in Palestine late on Friday, it turned out that they "didn't conform to the technical specifications as previously agreed upon, and that their expiry date was too close,'' said Palestinian Health Minister Mai Alkaila.

After this information was relayed to Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, "a decision was made to cancel the deal," Alkaila told a press-conference in Ramallah.

Instead, the PA will continue to exert pressure on Pfizer to supply the 4 million doses of the jab that Palestine already paid for as soon as possible, according to the minister.

''The prime minister has confirmed that the government refuses to receive vaccines that are about to expire," government spokesman, Ibrahim Melhem, said during the same press conference. The doses that were shipped on Friday have been already sent back to Israel, he added.

The Israeli authorities haven't yet officially reacted to the cancellation of the deal. But Army Radio quoted an unnamed Health Ministry official who insisted that "the vaccines are fine."

Reports in Israeli media suggested that the doses that were only good until the end of June or July were delivered to Palestine first so that they wouldn't go to waste. The rest of the ampules in the Israeli batch allegedly had later expiration dates.

Israel, which has fully vaccinated almost 60% of its population to date, has been heavily criticized by human rights groups over its reluctance to assist the occupied West Bank and Gaza with Covid immunization. The Jewish state has so far only provided shots for 100,000 Palestinian laborers who have jobs inside Israel.

Levy urged the government to help Palestine – where only around 30% of the population has received at least one shot of a Covid jab – as the ongoing pandemic crisis there threatened to jeopardize Israel's own gains in the fight against the virus.