Rights groups accuse Oxford University website of using ‘politicised’ numbers in Israel vaccine row
Several human rights groups have accused Oxford University of using politicised numbers and “celebrating” a military occupation because its website tracking coronavirus vaccine delivery, Our World in Data, does not include Palestinians in its figures on Israel’s vaccine rollout.
Citing the Fourth Geneva Convention, 19 NGOs including Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and a coalition of Palestinian human rights groups said that all 4.5 million Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation should be included in the calculation of the percentage of Israel’s population that has been vaccinated.
That includes the millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
The groups said the COVID-19 vaccinations chart shows Israel’s remarkable achievement in vaccinating many of its citizens.
“However, it omits the fact that, as an occupying power, Israel has failed to fulfill its obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention to provide vaccines to all 4.5 million Palestinians living under its military occupation, as affirmed by leading Palestinian, Israeli and international health and human rights organizations,” the letter, given to Our World in Data, read.
The groups added that writing that ‘Israel’ has vaccinated a percentage of “its population” without counting the population under its military control is “legally incorrect and morally problematic”.
Our World in Data, which is affiliated with Oxford University, said it agreed with their concern that the population living in Palestine should be taken into account but declined to change its way of tracking the rollout in a written response that was shared with The Independent.
It said that as they have different figures and percentages for those in ‘Israel’ and for Palestine and if they attempt to absorb the two it “would be double counting”.
In the letter, the groups urged the site to accurately include all Israelis and Palestinians living under Israeli control as a denominator when calculating Israel’s percentage of vaccination coverage.
“Adding these millions of vaccine-deprived Palestinians to Israel’s figures would change the picture entirely,” the letter read.
‘Israel’ has been criticised widely for not giving Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip access to the vaccine while it has been praised for its swift vaccine rollout.
Under the fourth Geneva Convention, ‘Israel’, as an occupying power, is obligated to provide Palestinians with the vaccines, as the occupying forces are responsible for providing healthcare to the population of the occupied area.
Most states as well as the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Court of Justice, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, consider ‘Israel’ to be an occupying power.
The UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and many other human rights organizations called on ‘Israel’ to help make vaccines available to the Palestinians, saying ‘Israel’ is obligated to do so under international law.
“The Israeli government must stop ignoring its international obligations as an occupying power and immediately act to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are equally and fairly provided to Palestinians living under its occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” said Amnesty International.
To date, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, there have been nearly 3364 deaths related to COVID-19 among Palestinians in the OPT since the beginning of the pandemic, 808 of them in the Gaza strip.
