Israel shines as coronavirus success story, while neighbors in Gaza are left without vaccines
“What can we do? I need to support my children. A person has to put himself at risk so others can survive,” said Barham Saleem Siam.
A Palestinian youth rides his bicycle past a mural of a nurse administering a Covid-19 vaccination in Gaza City in December. Mohammed Abed / AFP via Getty ImagesFeb. 9, 2021, 10:07 AM GMTBy Matt Bradley, Lawahez Jabari and Wajjeh Abu Zarefah
For Fadel Barham Saleem Siam, the choice is simple.
“I can sacrifice myself so that my family can survive,” Siam said last week from his home in the Gaza Strip.
For Siam, 51, who has continued working as much as he can throughout the coronavirus pandemic, even a mask is beyond his budget. Instead, he uses his semiregular income as a day-laboring builder to feed his six grandchildren.
“What can we do? I need to support my children. A person has to put himself at risk so others can survive,” he said.
Seven weeks after Israel administered its first vaccinations and after weeks of declining infection rates and hospitalizations, the country hopes to relax its lockdown rules soon, replacing them with a successful vaccination program.
Relief for Palestinians has come far later, widening the persistent inequality with Israelis that began long before the pandemic, Palestinian doctors and international health experts said.
“It is very difficult here, not only because it’s corona, but also because we have very limited resources,” said Dr. Bissan Wishah, a general physician at Gaza’s Al Sadaqa Hospital, which is solely dedicated to caring for Covid-19 patients.
“We are not like any other place in the world. So this makes the situation here harder, and we are facing many challenges, many difficulties to deal with the coronavirus,” she said.
Israel finds success in vaccine rollout
Israel last week sent 5,000 vaccine doses to Palestinians in the West Bank, along with 10,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine donated by Russia. Some of the doses are bound for Gaza, but they have yet to arrive.
