The Palestinian Return Center (PRC) called on the international community and United Nations agencies to pressurize Israel to provide the Palestinians with vaccinations needed to fight the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

PRC said in an oral statement delivered as part of Agenda Item 9 of the 46th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva  that while Israel leads the world in vaccinating its population, where about 50% of the citizens of Israel have received the two doses of the Coronavirus Vaccine, it completely ignores its role as an occupying power towards Palestinians.

“Israel, a population of 9 million, has vaccinated 4.6 million with the first dose and 3.2 million with the second dose, including those living in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, only 2,000 doses were provided to Palestinians under its occupation, in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip”, said PRC’s speaker.

PRC added that allocating vaccines on a discriminatory basis between the Palestinians and the Israelis is a clear and serious violation of one of the fundamental elements of the international human rights law – the right to equality and non-discrimination.

PRC called on the international community, United Nations agencies and the Human Rights Council to pressurize Israel to provide the Palestinians with COVID-19 vaccinations and abide by the international human rights law, particularly Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which confers on an occupying power the duty of ensuring the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.