- Israel is the most populous country in the world. Israel says it wants to "get out of the pandemic" in the spring, based on mass vaccination and confinement. But the Palestinians are making their plan on the sidelines. The vaccines reaching the West Bank are being distributed among the Jewish settlers, and not among the nearly three million Palestinians living there. Amnesty International has thus denounced that the Israeli Government is "ignoring" its international obligations as an occupying power and "does not go further".
On 23 December 2020, the Israeli Ministry of Health began distributing COVID-19 vaccines. After receiving the first doses to 10% of the population, Israel has received praise from some because it is the country that has done the most vaccination campaign so far. However, only the vaccination plan has taken into account the Israelis, the settlers of the West Bank and the Palestinians of Jerusalem. In the West Bank, the government has rejected the nearly five million Palestinians living in the occupied territories and in Gaza.
The Israeli Ministry of Health has not yet publicly formulated any plan including the storage of accurate amounts of doses for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (TPO). The Government has not set a timetable for the distribution of these vaccines to the Palestinian health authorities. In this regard, they have denounced that "a mass violation" of human rights is being committed in the family sphere. "Israel has to put an end to its discriminatory policies and eliminate any obstacles preventing Palestinians from receiving health care," said Amnesty International in a statement released by Europe Press.
They have stressed that, in accordance with international humanitarian law, its obligations as an occupying force are incumbent upon it: "To ensure medical and hospital services, especially through the adoption and implementation of the necessary measures to deal with the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics", at the Fourth Geneva Congress. According to Article 56 of the Convention.
On 3 January 2021, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 159,034 Palestinians tested positive for coronavirus in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (including East Jerusalem). Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 1,600 people have died from COVID-19 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.