Israel to send 1M vaccine doses to Palestinian Authority in swap deal

JERUSALEM (AA) - Israel will send at least 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the Palestinian Authority under a swap deal, an Israeli government statement said.

Under the deal, the statement said, the Palestinian Authority will give Israel a reciprocal number of doses it ordered from the Pfizer company in September or October, 2021.

Israel has recently witnessed a decrease in the coronavirus infections, with authorities removing most of the restrictions imposed to limit the spread of the virus.

More than 5.1 million people of Israel’s 9 million population have been fully vaccinated.

For her part, Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said the Palestinian government reached a deal with Pfizer to start receiving one million doses from Israel as of Friday.

In a statement to the Palestinian official WAFA news agency, al-Kaila said the Palestinian government had contracted with Pfizer to purchase 4 million doses, but the company would not be able to start delivering the order before October or November.

Al-Kaila added that in order to meet the urgent needs, Pfizer suggested that the Palestinian Authority takes the excess stock of the doses from Israel.

She added that the Palestinian Health Ministry started to receive the doses on Friday.

So far, the Palestinian Health Ministry has reported a total of 341,340 infections, including 3,816 deaths and 334,231 recoveries.

The Ministry said that 445,412 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have received vaccine jabs.

* Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara​​​​​​​