South Korea 1, Palestine 0

South Korea Signs Agreement for Israeli Vaccines that Palestinians Rejected

The Israel-South Korea vaccine agreement disproves the Palestinians’ claim that it rejected 1 million doses of coronavirus vaccines because they were too close to their expiration date.

Israel and South Korea signed a mutual vaccine supply agreement on Tuesday which will “facilitate the effective utilization of the present and future vaccine inventories of both countries.”

According to the agreement, Israel will immediately transfer approximately 700,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to South Korea for the vaccination of its citizens by the end of July.

In June, the Palestinian Authority rejected 1 million doses of coronavirus vaccines from Israel only hours after a deal was announced, claiming the doses were too close to their expiration date.

Israel disproved that claim, both by administering the doses to its citizens and by signing the agreement with South Korea.

In the exchange announced on Tuesday, South Korea will return the same quantity of vaccines to Israel from a future order in September-October 2021.

This is the first agreement of its kind for the exchange of coronavirus vaccines that has been signed between Israel and another country.

“The State of Israel welcomes the agreement and sees mutual advantages in it for both Israel and South Korea,” the Prime Minister’s Office stated.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has spoken with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla recently to facilitate the deal.

Bennett said that “we have made a win-win deal: South Korea will receive vaccines from our existing stocks and we will receive vaccines from their future shipment.”