AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The shortage of coronavirus vaccine and vulnerability of the poor countries to this situation encourages abuses by some sides.
For example, Israeli army radio on Wednesday reported that Tel Aviv may offer an Arab country considerable doses of Covid-19 vaccine in exchange for normalization of relations with the occupying regime.
An Israeli official has confirmed that the vaccines will be supplied to some Arab countries after the completion of the process of normalization of political relations.
Sources familiar with the offer said that one of the countries that would make a potential destination to the vaccines is the poor country of Mauritania. The delivery will be completed once the country normalizes with Tel Aviv.
Interestingly, these vaccines are sent by the Israelis to some poor African countries through the mediation of the UAE, which just a few months ago during the Trump administration signed thaw agreement with the Israeli regime.
Deprivation of Palestinians
These vaccines are to be sent to other countries by the Israeli regime while the access of Palestinian citizens in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to inoculations is blocked by severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities.
Legal and health experts highlight the Israeli commitments under the Oslo Accords, to which Tel Aviv is a signatory. It is also required to provide the vaccines needed by residents of the West Bank and Gaza. While by January 29, over one-fourth of the Israelis were inoculated, no vaccination program was started in majorly Palestinian concentration regions. It was until then that President Mahmoud Abbas of Palestinian Authority announced delivery of 10,000 doses of Russian Sputnik V vaccine as part of 2-million dose commitment for West Bank and Gaza.
There is a lack of consensus over who is responsible for the vaccination program in West Bank and Gaza. Some refer to the Geneva Convention, which states that those who occupy a territory– in this case, for example, the Israeli regime– are responsible for the health of those living there. Therefore, given the siege of the Gaza Strip and the occupation of many areas of the West Bank, the Israelis themselves are responsible for the lives of Palestinian citizens and have a duty to provide the required vaccine.
Using the Covid-19 vaccine instrumentally
Declining to provide the Palestinians with the vaccines on the one hand and conditionally sending vaccines to some African and Arab countries bears witness to the Israeli abuse of the health crisis as coronavirus continues to take lives and mar the healthcare systems. The Israelis are being largely abusive by tying the vaccine supplies to normalization.
Tel Aviv focuses its vaccine abuse policy on poor African states. Given the inequity in access to the vaccines worldwide as the distribution process rocked by discrimination, the Israeli regime puts the biggest focus on the low-income African countries.
This policy discloses a bitter reality: Tel Aviv spares no inhumane and unethical effort for normalized ties with other countries and realization of its goals.
/129