Five US Democratic Senators have asked President Joe Biden's administration to pressure the government of Israel to provide a vaccine against the Coronavirus ( COVID-19) to the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (who were among the candidates for their party to the last presidential elections), Thomas Carber, Sherrod Brown, and Jeffrey Merkley signed a joint letter addressed to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, stating that the Palestinian citizens of the West Bank and Gaza Strip received only limited quantities.
The shipped quantity of the vaccines to the Palestinian territories is very tiny and doesn't adequate to vaccinate the Palestinians at all, despite the success of Israel's large-scale vaccination campaign.
The letter asked the Biden administration to urge the Israeli government to do more to help the Palestinians in the occupied territories receive appropriate supplies of vaccines against Corona.
The letter stressed that Israel, as an occupying power, is responsible, under international law, for ensuring the health and well-being of people in the potential territories, pointing out that the emergency situation requires urgent and effective measures.
The letter warned that Israel’s failure to vaccinate the residents of some areas beyond the Green Line undermines the vaccination campaign in Israel itself, explaining that the Israelis will not be protected from the “COVID-19” epidemic unless the Palestinians are vaccinated.
On the other hand, the Palestinian Ministry of Health warned of the seriousness of the epidemiological situation in the Palestinian territories, stressing that the novel Coronavirus is currently spreading at unprecedented rates, with hospitals being completely overcrowded.
Today, Saturday, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Kamal Al-Shakhra, in an interview with "Voice of Palestine" radio, described the current epidemiological situation as "very dangerous," referring to "a very large and dangerous unprecedented spread" of the coronavirus.
Al-Shakhra acknowledged that the occupancy rate in hospitals and Corona treatment centers in the Palestinian territories has reached 100%.
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