Palestinians receive first virus vaccines in West Bank

The Palestinian Health Ministry started administering its first coronavirus jabs obtained through the COVAX intiative to people in the West Bank on Sunday, starting with health care workers and the elderly.

The World Health Organization and its partners running the COVAX program delivered 61,400 vaccines to the Palestinian Authority (PA)  on Wednesday.

Around 40,000 of those went to the West Bank, while 21,300 were shipped to the blockaded, Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The vaccine shipment is a boost to the West Bank, where the PA has struggled to obtain vaccines.

Until now, it had only secured 10,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine and 2,000 shots from Israel, for the roughly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank.

By contrast, Gaza, which has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade to isolate Hamas, has received more than 80,000 vaccines, most of which negotiated by a rival of President Mahmoud Abbas based in the United Arab Emirates.

Mohammed Dahlan, who has been living in Abu Dhabi since falling out with Abbas in 2011, secured the deliveries of 60,000 shots to the Gaza Strip and promised more, embarrassing Abbas ahead of Palestinian elections planned in May.