House Dems urge Biden to call on Israel to vaccinate Palestinians

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, 17 House Democrats, led by Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., called on the State Department to ensure the Israeli cabinet will roll out a vaccine program for Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

"Israel has a legal responsibility, under international law, as the occupying power to provide the Palestinian people with necessary medical care -- including the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines," Pocan said in a statement.

"The United States must stand up for the needs of Palestinian people during this global pandemic and ensure that they receive the same level of care from the Israeli government that we request in our own communities," he continued.

Israel, having administered more than 108 vaccine doses per 100 people, leads the world in inoculating its population with nearly 60% having received at least one shot and nearly 50% having been fully vaccinated, according to statistics curated by Oxford University's Our World in Data project.

However, the Zionist regime has come under stark criticism for months as it only recently agreed to vaccinate Palestinians.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 236,500 Palestinians have been infected with the virus, and 2,509 of them have died. The virus has also been surging among this population since about mid- to late-January.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said it launched its vaccination campaign on Feb. 24. But it has only received several thousands doses to inoculate its more than 4.5 million Palestinians in occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The United Nations Human Rights Office in January said Israel is required to maintain health services in the occupied territory under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

"Israel is an occupying power and has millions of vaccines. Palestine is the occupied territory and has barely a few thousand," Matthias Kennes, Doctors Without Borders medical adviser for Palestine, said in mid-February. "As a medic, I don't really care who sorts this out. As a medic, I do care deeply that the most vulnerable are prioritized."

The Democrats said in their letter that the Palestinian Authority, working with the WHO's COVAX initiative to ensure equitable access to vaccines, has only secured fewer than 50,000 doses while Israel, which has committed to provide 5,000 vaccines doses to the Palestine Authority in the occupied West Bank, has only given it about 2,000.