Jerusalem.
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Stopped today the deliveries of coronavirus vaccines which he planned to give to allied countries, after the first batches arrived in Honduras and Guatemala, and after the state attorney general, Avijai Mandelblit, asked for legal clarifications on the plan.
According to local media, Mandelblit demanded details of Netanyahu’s initiative, which was opposed today by the defense minister. Beny Gantz, Considering that he took on his own a negative decision for the interests of the country without consulting the relevant government agencies.
the National Security Council stopped all planned shipments, waiting for the prosecutor to rule on whether the prime minister has the legal power to transfer vaccines purchased with Israeli public money in other countries without Cabinet approval, specified the local newspaper ‘Haaretz’.
As reported today Fat, Who also filed his complaints with the prosecutor, vaccines are “a national asset,” and the fact that Netanyahu made the decision to donate part of the accumulated lot to other states is detrimental, as most of the population in Israel he doesn’t have a second dose yet. “
Israel leads the global vaccination by percentage of vaccinated population, with more than 4.5 million with the first dose and 3.2 with the second, of a population of about 9 million people.
Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that he would send vaccines to other countries that, according to local media, are some of Israel’s main allies, which he would reward for his diplomatic support for the Jewish state. Among these, in addition to Honduras or Guatemala, they are Hungary or the Czech Republic.
While the head of Government the purchase of vaccines adds diplomatic points, at the same time growing the debate on Israel’s responsibility to facilitate vaccination in the Palestinian population of Gaza or the West Bank, with several NGO who insist on Israel’s obligation to provide aid as an “occupying power”.
In the strip, Israel blocked the delivery of the first doses last week, and in the West Bank it committed 5,000 doses for health personnel, of which so far it has only delivered 2,000.