The Palestinian Authority accused Israel of holding up the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines to Gaza, which has yet to receive any doses.
A Palestinian official told Reuters the PA tried to send 2,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine from the occupied West Bank to Gaza on Monday, but that Israel stopped the shipment at a West Bank checkpoint “and informed the Palestinians there was no approval to continue to Gaza”.
An Israeli security official said the PA's request to send the 2,000 doses was "still being examined".
The body charged with approving the transfer is Israel’s National Security Council, part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the Israeli security official said.
Mr Netanyahu’s office did not immediately provide comment.
PA officials say they submitted the transfer request to Israeli defence authorities soon after receiving an initial shipment of 10,000 doses in the West Bank on February 4.
"Today, 2,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine were transferred to enter the Gaza Strip, but the occupation authorities prevented their entry," PA Health Minister Mai Alkaila said.
"These doses were intended for medical staff working in intensive care rooms designated for Covid-19 patients and for staff working in emergency departments."
The vaccine shipment was returned to the West Bank city of Ramallah because it needs to be kept extremely cold, the Palestinian official said.
The delay highlights the challenges of inoculating people in the Palestinian territories of West Bank and Gaza, two geographically distinct areas that Israel captured in a 1967 war and which are home to 5.2 million people.
Israel controls all entry and exit points to the West Bank and most of the coastal and land boundaries of the Gaza Strip, apart from a narrow border adjoining Egypt in the south.
Both Israel and Egypt maintain restrictions on the coastal strip, over security fears about the militant group Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007.
Palestinians and rights groups have accused Israel, a world leader in Covid-19 vaccination, of ignoring its duties as an occupying power by not including the Palestinian populations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in its inoculation programme.
Israeli officials said that under the Oslo peace accords, the Palestinian Health Ministry is responsible for vaccinating people in Gaza and parts of the West Bank where the PA has limited self-rule.
The PA's Health Ministry began vaccinations for frontline medical workers on February 2, after receiving 5,000 doses of vaccine from Israel.
Priority was given to medical teams in intensive care units, as the first line of defence against the virus, the ministry said.
"To take the vaccine was like a dream for us, as a medical team who were on the front line since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic," Dr Shadi Al Laham, general director of Bethlehem Health Centre, told The National when he received his first dose.
“We were living with worry and constant fear of getting infected by the virus, especially because a lot of our colleagues were infected.”
Health workers were given the Moderna vaccine after the ministry received 2,000 doses on Monday.
The elderly and people with chronic illnesses were next in line to be inoculated, the ministry said.
It said the PA bought doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and that a shipment would arrive soon.
