Jerusalem.
The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, today the delivery of corona vaccines that he planned to donate to allied countries after the first lots arrived in Honduras and Guatemala, and after the Attorney General, Avijai Mandelblit, asked for legal clarification on the plan.
According to the local press, Mandelblit asked for details about Netanyahu’s initiative, which the defense secretary opposed today. Beny Gantz, given that he took a negative decision on his own for the interests of the country without consulting the relevant government authorities.
The National Security Council Israel halted all planned shipments pending the prosecution’s ruling on whether the prime minister has legal authority to transfer vaccines purchased with Israeli public money to other countries without cabinet approval, the local newspaper Haaretz said.
As reported today Gantz, who also brought his complaints to the prosecutor, vaccines are “a national good,” and the fact that Netanyahu made the decision to donate some of the accumulated lot to other states is damaging, as “the majority of the population Israel he has not yet received a second dose. “
Israel leads the world in vaccination as a percentage of the vaccinated population, with more than 4.5 million with the first dose and 3.2 with the second, in a population of about 9 million people.
Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that he would be sending vaccines to other countries that local media say are some of Israel’s main allies, which he would reward for their diplomatic support of the Jewish stateAmong these, in addition Honduras or Guatemala, there is Hungary or the Czech Republic.
While the head of government attempts to add diplomatic points to the purchase of vaccines, while at the same time the debate grows over Israel’s responsibility to provide Palestinian population Gaza or the West Bank, with several APPROX who insist on Israel’s obligation to provide aid as an “occupying force”.
In the strip, Israel last week blocked delivery of the first doses, and in the West Bank, it committed 5,000 doses to health workers, of which only 2,000 so far.