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The Palestinian Authority has canceled a deal under which Israel was to give it at least one million Covid vaccines.
The authority said the Pfizer jabs were too close to their expiry date.
Earlier, Israel said it didn’t need an aging stock of vaccines and they were to be used to speed up the Palestinian vaccination program.
In return, the Palestinians were to give Israel a similar number of vaccines they are expecting from the Pfizer organization later in the year.
However, when the first batch of jabs from Israel arrived, Palestinian officials said they were even nearer their expiry date than expected.
They said there wasn’t enough time to use them, and that the deal was off.
Why Palestinians are behind in Covid vaccinations
Palestinian Authority spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said the initial delivery of about 90,000 doses failed to conform “to the specifications contained in the agreement, and accordingly, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh instructed the minister of health to cancel the agreement”.
“The government refuses to receive vaccines that are about to expire,” he said in the statement carried by the official Wafa news agency.
Mr. Melhem added that they would instead wait for the consignment of vaccines the authority had ordered directly from Pfizer.
