Or Yehuda, Israel (March 8, 2021) — Magen David Adom, Israel’s paramedic and Red Cross service, today began vaccinating Palestinians with Israeli work permits under a plan that will provide the first dose of the two-shot Moderna protocol to 120,000 Palestinians within the next two weeks. All the Palestinians will receive their second shot beginning in four weeks.
“From an epidemiological standpoint, it makes sense to vaccinate Palestinian workers,” said Eli Bin, Magen David Adom’s director-general, “given that they spend their daytime hours in Israel and their evenings in the Palestinian territories, a dynamic that puts both populations at greater risk for spread.
“However, the more important statement this initiative makes is humanitarian, telling the Palestinian people that their lives and health have value,” he said. “As Israel’s representative to the International Red Cross Movement, we’re proud to be able to play the lead role in this initiative.”
Under the program, which was coordinated by Israeli governmental authorities, Magen David Adom will vaccinate Palestinians with work permits at six checkpoints on the border with Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Medical personnel from Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer will cover vaccinations at two other checkpoints. Magen David Adom will additionally vaccinate Palestinian workers at six industrial parks, immunizing them at their workplaces.
In all, Magen David Adom anticipates that it will vaccinate about 100,000 of the 120,000 workers that will be vaccinated under the program.
“In the end we live together, so we have to get vaccinated together,” Muhsan Hamdan, a Palestinian worker from Bethlehem, told Ynet News at a vaccination site. “I have no doubt that this will have a positive effect on relations [between Israelis and the Palestinians].”
