By Stephen Farrell and Rami Ayyub
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has frozen its programme to send COVID-19 vaccines abroad to buy international goodwill, Defence Minister Benny Gantz said on Thursday, after Israeli news reports said the initiative had come under legal scrutiny.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under fire for donating COVID-19 vaccines to foreign allies, while Palestinians complained that, as an occupying power, Israel should be supplying more to them.
Israeli public broadcaster Kan, which earlier this week reported that Israel would send small shipments to 19 countries, said the attorney general was seeking clarification about the programme.
“I welcome the decision to freeze the transfer of vaccines to other countries,” Gantz, who is serving in Netanyahu’s government while preparing to face off against him in an election next month, said on Twitter.
Israel has had one of the world’s fastest rollouts of COVID-19 vaccines, with nearly half the population already having received one dose. It has so far given only 2,000 doses to the Palestinians, arguing that they are responsible for their own healthcare system.
Honduras – an ally of Israel – had already received 5,000 vaccine doses from Israel earlier on Thursday before the programme was frozen.
A video clip of their arrival was tweeted by President Juan Orlando Hernandez with the message “Take heart, Honduras!”.
Netanyahu’s office made no immediate comment after the reports that the initiative was on hold.
The right-wing Israeli leader earlier this week defended the decision, saying Israel had “unused” Moderna vaccines left over.
“I think it buys goodwill,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “I think it is an intelligent decision … in return for many dividends that we have already received, in many ongoing contacts in many different fields that I will not elaborate about here.”
But centrist former general Gantz said a decision to give away vaccines must be made in the “proper forums” and it was not up to Netanyahu to take such action on his own.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Stephen Farrell; Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa; Editing by Peter Graff)
