Palestinians have been excluded from Israel's impressive vaccine rollout so far

• Israel is leading the rest of the world with its swift and effective vaccine rollout.
• But the country has sparked debate over whether they have an obligation to include Palestinians.
• Some say it's Israel's obligation as an occupying force, while Israel says it's not their job.

Since the first COVID-19 vaccine was administered less than two months ago, Israel has had the quickest and most effective vaccine rollout of any country by far. Leading the world in inoculations so far, it is the first country where vaccines are truly beginning to curb the virus.

Since the operation began in early January, more than a third of Israel's 9.3 million people have already received at least one shot, according to The Associated Press. More than 1.9 million have gotten both doses.

The nation's vaccine operation is even fittingly named "Getting Back to Life," and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that the country's agreement with Pfizer will allow all Israeli citizens over the age of 16 to be vaccinated by the end of March.

In January he said "...we will vaccinate the entire relevant population and everyone who wants to will be able to be vaccinated," during an update on vaccines.

But despite its success, the country has drawn growing international criticism over its exclusion of Palestinians from its impressive vaccination drive.

In mid-January, the World Health Organization raised concerns about the unequal distribution according to the Associated Press. Weeks later, almost all Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank still haven't received a first dose, The New York Times reported.

The inequity has prompted a global debate over whether Israel has an obligation as an occupying power to vaccinate Palestinian people.

International rights groups argue that Israel has a legal responsibility to extend its vaccination efforts to the Palestinian people who live in the Israeli-occupied, Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

But Israel disagrees. They claim the Palestinians assumed control of their own population's health services when they signed the Oslo Accords - a pair of landmark agreements between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization - in the 1990s.

According to the accords, the Palestinian Authority is in charge of administering health care for the West Bank and Gaza, while both sides are tasked to work together when it comes to epidemics.

Nearly three million Palestinians reside in the West Bank which is also home to about 450,000 Israeli residents, according to The Times.

Critics of the occupying power highlight the inequity of the hundreds of thousands of West Bank Israelis who are eligible for the vaccine because of their nationality, living among the millions of Palestinians who are not.

"Nothing can justify today's reality in parts of the West Bank, where people on one side of the street are receiving vaccines, while those on the other do not, based on whether they're Jewish or Palestinian," Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch director for Israel and Palestine, said in a statement to the AP. "Everyone in the same territory should have equitable access to the vaccine, regardless of their ethnicity."

Israel has insisted its priority must be in vaccinating its own population, though officials have said they may consider sharing more supplies with Palestinians at some point, the AP reported.

"We want everyone in the area to be vaccinated, but the Palestinian Authority is the party responsible for providing for the health of Palestinians," Yoav Kish, Israel's deputy health minister told The Times. "Our responsibility is to vaccinate our own population,"

Human rights groups say Israel has a moral obligation to include the Palestinians in vaccinations since the country clearly has the resources to help. Others have pointed to the public health risk of not vaccinating Palestinians, many of whom regularly cross into Israel for work.

"It will be very difficult to ensure full protection of the Israeli population while not ensuring also that adequate vaccinations are done on the Palestinian side," Dr. Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the WHO office for the Palestinian territories, told the AP.

While the Palestinian vaccine rollout has at least now begun - The Times reported that the Palestinian Authority launched its campaign this week, starting with frontline medical workers and using vaccines given to them by Israel - it significantly trails Israel's.

"After 50 years of occupation with no end in sight, Israel's duties go beyond offering spare doses," Shakir told The Times.

After public health experts recommended it, Israel reportedly gave the Palestinian Authority 2,000 Moderna doses and said they had future plans to give another 3,000, the newspaper reported.

The Palestinians also received 10,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine and expect to get hundreds of thousands more in the coming months through the global-sharing Covax initiative, sources told The Times.

Many of Israel's defenders say the country simply moved quicker than the Palestinian Authority in securing deals with vaccine distributors.

According to The Times, the Palestinian Authority did not initially call on Israel to include Palestinians in their rollout because they thought they would be able to acquire enough vaccinations themselves through a combination of international donations, pharmaceutical company contacts, and private discussions with Israeli officials.

It later became clear that would not be enough, and the Palestinian Authority started making public demands that Israel fulfill its "international duty."