18,000 Palestinian Workers In Israel Vaccinated On First Two Days Of Campaign

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Israel has initiated a two-week campaign to vaccinate the more than 100,000 Palestinians who carry legitimate Israeli work permits.

At the Sha’ar Efraim crossing, the Israeli military set up one of eight vaccination centers which are spread along the buffer zone between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with the capacity to vaccinate 1,000 people a day.

“It is within both Israeli and Palestinian interests that we vaccinate the workers since, as we know, coronavirus knows no geographical boundaries,”  Lior Wisbaum, foreign relations officer at Cogat, the Israeli military agency that coordinates with the Palestinian Authority, told the Washington Post.

Palestinian workers await vaccination (Wissam Hashlamoun/Flash 90)

On Tuesday, Cogat opened four similar vaccination clinics at industrial centers in Judea and Samaria where Palestinian workers are employed. Some 80,000 Palestinians from Judea and Samaria work in greater Israel, mostly in construction, agriculture and in the hotel industry. An additional 35,000 work in Israeli settlements and industrial zones in Judea and Samaria. Two-thirds of those day laborers have been unemployed since April, according to a report by the Bank of Israel.

The Israel Builders Association, which has been petitioning Israel’s Health Ministry for weeks to vaccinate them in order to enable them to return to work, welcomed the move, stating that “In light of the long-standing partnership between Israeli employers and workers and Palestinian workers at construction sites, we believe it would be fair and even moral to promote their vaccination.”

Palestinian workers themselves, who have not had the opportunity like Israelis to vaccinate, welcomed the move and came willingly to the centers. Some 18,000 have been vaccinated on the first two days of the operation.

“There is no other way out of this than the vaccine,” said Muawar Ahmad, a worker at the Sha’ar Efraim crossing who said he was the first Palestinian to be inoculated as part of the Israeli program when it conducted a pilot run Thursday. “It is a way to freedom, for everyone.”