The abrupt turnaround came after health officials in Ramallah inspected the first delivery of almost 90,000 doses Friday afternoon, the Palestinian Health Minister said.
”It was found that the doses did not conform to the technical specifications as previously agreed upon, and that their expiry date was close,” minister Mai Alkaila said, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
”Hence, we reached out to Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, and a decision was made to cancel the deal,” Alkaila added.
The move to transfer Israel’s surplus stock of Pfizer vaccines to Palestinians in the occupied territories, an arrangement already in the works under the previous Netanyahu administration, according to Israeli media reports, was announced Friday morning by the Israeli government.
A government statement had acknowledged the vaccines “will expire soon” but it was not clear exactly how much time remained for Palestinian health authorities to administer the doses before…