Palestinian President Abbas receives COVID-19 jab

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine  as the inoculation campaign began in the West Bank.

Abbas, 85, was seen being vaccinated in a video released by his office in a bid to boost the rollout,  which started for health care workers and the elderly on Sunday.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) received around 62,000 coronavirus vaccine doses last week through a World Health Organization partnership designed to help poor countries.

The COVAX initiative shipment included 38,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot and 24,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

That would be enough to vaccinate 31,000 people out of a population of nearly 5 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.

To date, the PA has received 2,000 doses from Israel and acquired another 10,000 doses of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.

Authorities in the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, have received 60,000 doses from a political rival of Abbas who is based in the United Arab Emirates.

Israel, which has vaccinated more than half its population of 9.3 million, has faced criticism for not sharing more of its supplies with Palestinians.

Israel says its own citizens are the priority, and that under interim peace agreements the PA is responsible for health care in the territories it administers.

The PA says it is securing its own supplies.

Israel recently began vaccinating the estimated 100,000 Palestinians from the West Bank who work in Israel and Jewish settlements.