Both are Palestinian residents of Kafr ‘Aqab, a patch of territory that, under Israeli law, is part of greater Jerusalem, but is considered an illegally annexed territory under international law, after the conquest from Jordan in 1967.
It is also walled from Jerusalem by Israel’s gigantic concrete security wall. Jewish Israelis rarely come here, except in uniform to conduct military raids.
Mahmoud Oudeh, like thousands of other residents of the city, has a Palestinian identity card. His friend Anan abu Aishe has an Israeli ID, which defines him as a permanent resident of East Jerusalem. This entitles him to participate in Israel’s world-leading vaccination campaign, which is on track to meet the government’s target of vaccinating the entire country by the end of March.
But at least 4.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are left behind. So far, no one has had the injections and most probably won’t get them anytime soon – because there is no vaccination campaign against Covid-19 in the Palestinian territories.
So when Anan gets the vaccine and continues with his friend to cut and sell meat from the goats and carcasses slung on hooks in the store, he says he would feel guilty.
“Half of the people here can’t take it, so I’m not going to take it, why take it if they can’t? Not me,” he told CNN.
“It’s racist,” added Mahmoud.
According to United Nations experts, an immunization policy that distinguishes between those with Israeli ID and those without ID is “unacceptable”.
The UN expert report says Israel is the occupying force in and over Gaza and the West Bank, and has been since 1967, ultimately responsible for the health care of those living under occupation.
According to the expert report, published by the UN Office’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Israel should extend its vaccination campaign to all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
The experts also said, “4.5 million Palestinians will be left unprotected and exposed to Covid-19, while Israeli civilians living near and below them – including the Israeli settler population – will be vaccinated. Morally and legally, this differential access to necessary health care amid the worst global health crisis in a century is unacceptable. ”
But since the Israeli vaccination campaign exceeds 20% of the Israeli population (including residents of East Jerusalem), this is not a characterization that Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein accepts.
“Our calculation was based on Israeli citizens. If we get to the point where everyone in the country who wants to be vaccinated is vaccinated, we will be more than ready to share the vaccines with our neighbors,” Edelstein told CNN.
“At this stage we’re talking about Israeli citizens … I’ve never heard of any obligation on Israel to pay for the vaccines for anyone else.”
The Israeli government points to the Oslo Accords signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1990s that led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The first of those agreements includes a clause transferring responsibility to the PA for the health of all Palestinians under its civil rule.
Experts admit that trying to navigate between the responsibilities assigned by Oslo, which was not a definitive status agreement, is no easy task, and the ones enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.
In his interview with CNN, Edelstein formulated the decision in terms of interests rather than obligations.
“At this stage we are not supplying vaccines, but we do understand that it is in Israel’s interest to make sure we don’t get into a situation where we get vaccinated and then get out of these problems, and on the Palestinian side there is yet another rise in the number, ” Edelstein added.
The PA’s health minister, Dr. Mai Al-Kaileh, says they expect to get the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of March, but no specific date has yet been set for their arrival. The ministry says it has signed contracts with four companies that produce the vaccine. These vaccines will cover 70% of the Palestinian population and the World Health Organization will provide the ministry with 20%, ”the PA said in a Jan. 9 statement.
At Ramallah’s Public Central Hospital, medics work around the clock to treat coronavirus patients in a Covid-only intensive care unit. As in many hospitals around the world, non-specialist personnel have been recruited to deal with the pandemic. But after a prolonged lockdown, admissions are running back and on the day CNN comes to visit, the ICU unit is not full.
Dr. Wafa Shihadeh, a live-in general surgeon, has worked in the Covid-19 wards for months. He says he has seen many of his colleagues succumb to an infection and spread it to their families.
“We are starting to feel depressed because we are not getting the vaccines here in the Palestinian territories,” he said. “And on the other side of the border, Israel … I think about 1,600,000 people were vaccinated since three days ago, and here in Palestine the number of people vaccinated is zero.”
Abeer Salman contributed to this report.