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Available for over a year

While Israel is vaccinating its population against Covid-19 at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world, the Palestinian Authority only received its first small delivery of vaccine supplies for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, on Saturday. There are concerns that Palestinians are being excluded from the rollout. The Israeli health minister Yuli Edelstein's response is to say Israel is not legally obliged to provide the vaccine for Palestinians. But Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, says that "international humanitarian law is quite clear that Israel, as the occupying power, is responsible to ensure medical supplies, including those needed to combat pandemics, to the occupied population". Photo: A Palestinian medical worker collects a tests a boy for Covid-19 in the southern Gaza Strip January, 2021 Credit: Reuters