Palestinians cancel deal for near-expired Covid vaccines from Israel

The Palestinian Authority cancelled a deal to receive soon-to-expire Covid-19 vaccines from Israel on Friday after an initial Israeli shipment revealed an expiration date earlier than agreed.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) cancelled a deal on Friday to receive soon-to-expire Covid-19 vaccines from Israel after an initial Israeli shipment showed an expiration date sooner than had been agreed, the PA health minister said. Israel and the PA announced a vaccine swap deal earlier on Friday that would have seen Israel send up to 1.4 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to the PA, in exchange for receiving a reciprocal number of doses from the PA later this year. The doses were due to "expire soon", Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's office said in a statement announcing the deal. The PA said they had been "approved in order to speed up the vaccination process" in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.