Medical professionals in Gaza are finally starting to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Dr. Mohammed Abdelmanem, a 47-year-old pulmonologist, will be among the first wave to receive a vaccine this week. He says he’s looking forward to finally not being afraid.

Cases of COVID-19 continue to rise in the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians experience a third wave, overwhelming hospitals and filling ICU’s to their maximum capacity.

Northeastern University panel on Americans emerging from COVID trauma elevates Israeli militarism under “existential threat” as key to the “startup nation” — yet another sign of the extent to which Israeli hasbara, or propaganda, is routinely put forward in leading American institutions as a guide to American thinking and policy. Israeli soldiers are the heroes in this discourse — and Palestinians are the shadowy terrorists.

Palestinian-Americans were turned back from an Israeli vaccination clinic at a checkpoint outside Ramallah because they held Palestinian ID cards, and the U.S. Embassy won’t help them. “It would be different if all U.S. citizens here were being treated the same,” Wafaa Jallaq tells Mondoweiss. “But when Israel, or being Israeli, is basically the distinction between who gets vaccinated and who doesn’t, that’s when it becomes frustrating. The U.S. has let go of its responsibility towards its citizens in the West Bank.”

Over the last week the West Bank continues to experience a “significant surge” in a third COVID-19 wave, according to the World Health Organization with some areas doubling the number of active cases in the last seven days.

This week will mark the one year anniversary since the first cases of the coronavirus were reported in Palestine, and a state of emergency was declared in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, where Palestine’s COVID-19 outbreak began. One year later Palestine’s COVID-19 nightmare seems to only be getting worse. Cases are surging in the West Bank, causing health officials to declare a third wave of the virus, as many hospitals across the territory reach maximum capacity.

‘Jewish Link,’ paper serving orthodox Jewish community of NY and NJ, thinks it’s funny to publish Purim satire about Israeli military sharpshooters shooting 100,000 Palestinians with vaccine. “We look forward to shooting them a second time.”

Health professionals urge Dr. Anthony Fauci to use some of his $1 million prize from an Israeli foundation to “send a powerful message” of vaccination equity and buy vaccines for Palestinians under occupation, whom Israel has refused to take responsibility for.

While Israel sends its vaccines abroad, and coordinates the purchase of vaccines to Syria, the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation are still being left out of the state’s inoculation plans.

The JVP Health Advisory Council calls on Israel to assume its responsibility to distribute vaccines to Palestinians in the occupied territory: “As health workers, it would be a violation of our professional ethics to stand by in silence as this form of discrimination occurs.”