Bernie Sanders criticises Israel for not sending coronavirus vaccines to Palestinians

US senator Bernie Sanders took to his official Twitter handle and hit out at the Israeli government for not providing vaccines to Palestinians. He said that it is outrageous that Netanyahu would use the spare vaccines for foreign allies but not for the Palestinians. Sanders wrote, “As the occupying power, Israel is responsible for the health of all the people under its control. It is outrageous that Netanyahu would use spare vaccines to reward his foreign allies while so many Palestinians in the occupied territories are still waiting”.

'Full responsibility'

This comes after the Palestinian authorities said that Israel was preventing it from sending coronavirus vaccines to the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Health Minister Mai Alkaila said in a statement that Israel bore “full responsibility” for blocking the shipment of 2,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover. According to The Guardian, Israel transports batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine deep inside the West Bank, but they are not being distributed to the roughly 2.7 million Palestinians living in the region. The Palestinian Authority, which maintains limited self-rule in the territories, has said that optimistically, the shots could arrive within the next two weeks. 

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Even with Israel’s record-setting vaccination drive, the Palestinian authorities have not officially asked for help. The Israeli officials have suggested that they might provide surplus vaccines to Palestinians and claimed they are not responsible for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Meanwhile, international rights groups have accused Israel of dodging moral, humanitarian, and legal obligations as an occupying power during the pandemic.

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Due to the disparities between the two regions, while Israel could return to some form of normalcy within three months, Palestinians, on the other hand, could remain trapped by the virus. In Gaza, which is an impoverished enclave under an Israeli blockade, the timeframe is believed to be even longer than in the West Bank. According to reports, the strip’s Islamist rulers have been unable to contain the virus and are enemies with Israel and political rivals with the Palestinian Authority.

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