News Analysis India

Tag: Israel

  • Coronavirus Vaccination Drive To Begin From Dec 27, Says Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said that the country will start a coronavirus vaccination drive from December 27 onward as the first batch of Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine arrived in Tel Aviv. With a population of over 88 million people, Israel received the first of 80 million doses it had ordered from pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and BioNTech. Netanyahu, while overseeing the unloading of the shipment from a cargo plane, said that the country’s health services are capable of vaccinating 60,000 people per day.

    Netanyahu added that a “much bigger” cargo is expected to arrive on Thursday, December 10. The Israeli Prime Minister urged every eligible person in the country to get vaccinated as he vowed to take the first shot himself in order to clear any doubts that people might be having regarding vaccines. The shipment arrived a day before the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which is a festival of lights. Netanyahu said that the arrival of the vaccine has brought great light to Israel. 

    Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine has already earned approval in the United Kingdom, which became the first Western country on Tuesday to start inoculating people outside a trial setting. Canada’s health regulators have approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The American and the German firm, who have developed the vaccine together, are seeking approval in the United States as well, where the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to grant emergency use authorisation in the next couple of days. 

  • Israel Defence Forces Agree To Investigate Palestinian Teenager’s Death

    Israel’s defence forces on December 6 announced in a statement that it will investigate the allegations about its military troops shooting dead a Palestinian child in Mughayir village. The act was strongly condemned by the United Nations, international human rights watch agencies and the European Union.

    As per reports, the EU called for an immediate probe into the 13 years old Ali Abu Aliya’s killing in the West Bank with a bullet targeted in his stomach. While the Palestinians accused the Israeli soldiers of committing a humanitarian and a gory war crime, the EU delegation to Palestinian called for a full investigation into the shocking incident. 

    On Friday, the Palestinian teenager was among those protesting against Israeli land occupation and construction of Jewish settlements in the al-Mughayyir village of the occupied West Bank, near Ramallah. According to a UN Human Rights Watch report, the Palestinian kid was fatally shot by the Israeli forces after the confrontation broke out clashes between Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers. As the boy was rushed in an ambulance service to the nearby hospital, he had succumbed to the gunshot wound and was declared brought dead, Ramallah’s local health ministry confirmed in a statement. 

  • Israel PM Netanyahu travelled Secretly to Saudi Arabia To Meet Bin Salman, Pompeo: Reports

    Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly travelled secretly on November 22 to the city of Neom on Saudi Arabia’s Red coast for a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an Israeli official told local media on November 23.

    Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are thought to have maintained secret ties for many years now but it is the first time such a high-level meeting has been reported, amid a general non-existence of official ties. When the news broke on several media outlets, Netanyahu’s social media adviser Topaz Luk tweeted saying, “While Benny Gantz is dealing with politics the Prime Minister is making peace.”

    As per interpretations, Netanyahu’s office has neither commented on the story nor denied it. Moreover, reports also claimed that Israel’s Prime Minister did not notify his coalition partners, who are also his rivals, including Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, about the trip to Saudi Arabia. But, the director of Mossad, Yossi Cohen, allegedly joined Netanyahu for the visit where the Israeli PM was reportedly on ground in Neom for at least five hours.

    Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said on November 23 that he participated in a  “constructive” meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince the night before wrapping up his seven-nation trip on behalf of the outgoing US President Donald Trump administration. Pompeo visited Israel along with other Gulf nations but did not mention Netanyahu’s presence in Neom.

  • Israel To Sign Agreement To Procure 8 Million Pfizer Vaccine Doses, Supply Begins In Jan

    Israel will sign a provisional deal with Pfizer Inc to procure over 8 million doses of the experimental coronavirus vaccine from January onwards, Israel’s health minister said in a statement. The deal will be subject to approval by Israel’s Health Ministry and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The vaccine supply will begin in January 2021 for 4 million people, and will continue through the year 2021 to obtain 8 million doses, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said in a statement. 

    On November 12, Pfizer confirmed deals with countries for the supply of COVID-19 vaccine’s safe doses, claiming that the still-experimental vaccine candidate was more than 90 percent effective based on initial clinical trials. The pharmaceutical firm confirmed that it reached an agreement to provides a supply of 200 million doses and an additional 100 million doses of its BNT162B2 MRNA-based vaccine to European countries. The deliveries worldwide are anticipated to start by the end of 2020, subject to regulatory approval, Pfizer said in a statement. Pfizer and BioNTech initiated a rolling submission to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in October, and are now entering deals with other countries. 

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a state press conference that large doses of the vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc. will be received in Israel by January and the government was working to get vaccines from other companies, as well. “We have to follow the rules,” Netanyahu said in a press address.

    Pfizer and BioNTech announced their mRNA-based vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, against SARS-CoV-2 on November 9. The company claimed that the experimental vaccine demonstrated evidence of efficacy based on the interim efficacy analysis conducted on November 8, 2020, by an external, independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMC). “DMC reviewed 94 cases,” Pfizer said in a release. 

  • America finishes big arms deal with UAE

    The United States has approved arms deals worth more than 1 lakh 73 thousand crores to the United Arab Emirates. Through this deal, the US will sell its state-of-the-art stealth combat aircraft F-35 and MQ-9 Reaper drones to the UAE.

    The UAE had been wanting to purchase the F-35 stealth fighter aircraft of the US for the past several years, but the deal was delayed due to Israeli objections. A few months ago, the UAE signed a peace deal with Israel. Recently the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan have signed agreements with Israel.

    Pompeo said that the UAE is under threat from Iran, so we are strengthening it by giving it weapons. He said the deal recognizes our deepening ties and the need for enhanced defense capabilities to protect the UAE against threats from Iran. Trump wants all pending agreements to be finalized within his remaining term.

  • India hopes for early resumption of dialogue between Palestine, Israel

    Expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said India hopes for an early resumption of dialogue between Palestine and Israel for moving towards a comprehensive and negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    In his message on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, Modi said, “I wish to convey India’s strong support for the Palestinian cause and to express our solidarity with the Palestinian people in their efforts to establish a sovereign, independent and united State of Palestine co-existing peaceful with the State of Israel.

    He said as the Day is marked, “we hope for an early resumption of dialogue between Palestine and Israel for moving towards a comprehensive and negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

    Modi underscored that historical ties between India and Palestine have further strengthened in recent years, adding that his visit to Ramallah in February this year was the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Palestine.

    “The visit was an assertion of India’s strong commitment for the development of Palestine.”

    India has announced an increase in the annual scholarships for Palestinian students, six new projects including construction of a specialty hospital and an increase in its annual contribution to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).

    “Our financial and technical assistance is an expression of our strong resolve to strengthen Palestinian institutions,” Modi said.

    In his message Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a two-State solution where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side as sovereign nations is still “the only option” for lasting peace, and “containing the situation is not sufficient.”

    Guterres said more than 40 years ago, the General Assembly established an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people to remind “us of our collective, unfinished task of resolving the question of Palestine. Over the decades, this has become one of the most intractable challenges for the international community, and we know only too well the tragic results.”

    He called on Palestinian and Israeli leaders “to restore faith in the promise” of the UN General Assembly resolution of two States living side-by-side in peace and security, fulfilling the legitimate national aspirations of both peoples, with borders based on the 1967 lines and Jerusalem as the capital of both states – East Jerusalem being the capital of the Palestinian state.”