Israeli officials have secretly agreed to fund coronavirus vaccines for Syria in exchange for the release of an Israeli woman arrested for illegal entry into Syria, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
Under the terms of the agreement, Israel will pay Russia, a support from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to ship Russia’s vaccine to Syria.
In an interview on Saturday, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin (Bibi) NetanyahuMORE he did not directly deny the arrangement, saying only that no Israeli vaccines would be sent to Syria and that he was glad that the Israeli citizen had been released.
“I will not add anything,” Netanyahu said after thanking the Russian president Vladimir Putin
Governor Cuomo’s flying promotion of Vladimir Vladimirovich looks pretty bad, now Putin’s critic Navalny is losing his prison sentence. Biden calls for “rules” on cybernetics, technology to combat threats from China and Russia MORE.
Syria and Israel have no formal diplomatic relations and the two countries still dispute the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1960s. The Israeli government’s official announcement said the woman had been released in exchange for two Syrian shepherds captured by Israel. according to the Times.
The report also comes because Israel has administered at least one dose of vaccine to about half of its population. Meanwhile, only a few thousand doses have been provided to the West Bank, where about 2.8 million Palestinians live.
The country has claimed responsibility for providing medical care to Palestinians under the Oslo Accords, while Palestinians have argued that the Fourth Geneva Convention calls health care one of the responsibilities of an occupying power, according to the Times.
“Israel is willing to offer vaccines to Syrians outside its borders, but at the same time not to offer them to a hugely occupied population for which they are legally responsible,” researcher Khaled Elgindy, an adviser to the Palestinian leadership, told the newspaper. “It seems to send a message that they are deliberately trying to avoid their legal responsibility to take care of the welfare of that busy population.
Hill contacted the Israeli foreign ministry for comments.