Oxford 'Celebrating' Occupation of Palestinians: Rights Groups
WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Human rights groups says Oxford University is "celebrating" a military occupation for politicizing figures collated on its website tracking coronavirus vaccine delivery, which excludes Palestinians on the Zionist regime’s vaccine rollout.
Nineteen NGOs including Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and a coalition of Palestinian human rights groups cited the Fourth Geneva Convention and stated that more than five million Palestinians living under the regime’s military occupation should be included in the calculation of the percentage of the occupied territories’ population that has been vaccinated.
The Fourth Geneva Convention states that the occupying power must ensure that all the necessary preventive means available to it are utilized to "combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics".
Our World in Data, a website associated with the University of Oxford, has emerged as a leading tool for tracking vaccination delivery and to understand the protective effects of vaccination, its side effects, and people's attitudes towards vaccination. It shows the Zionist regime’s "remarkable achievement in vaccinating many of its citizens”.
However, "it omits the fact that, as an occupying power, Israel has failed to fulfill its obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention to provide vaccines to all 4.5 million Palestinians living under its military occupation, as affirmed by leading Palestinian, Israeli and international health and human rights organizations," the letter read.
The charities added that the Zionist regime has vaccinated a percentage of "its population" without counting the population under its military control is "legally incorrect and morally problematic".
Our World in Data agreed with their concern that the population living in Palestine should be taken into account but declined to change its way of tracking the rollout in a written response that was shared with the Independent.
The Zionist regime has been widely criticized for intentionally barring Palestinians from getting vaccinated in the midst of a pandemic, as it is obligated to do under international law as an occupying power.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have said the exclusion means the regime is "ignoring its obligations" as an occupying force under international law and "exposes Israel's institutionalized discrimination."
Nineteen NGOs including Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and a coalition of Palestinian human rights groups cited the Fourth Geneva Convention and stated that more than five million Palestinians living under the regime’s military occupation should be included in the calculation of the percentage of the occupied territories’ population that has been vaccinated.
The Fourth Geneva Convention states that the occupying power must ensure that all the necessary preventive means available to it are utilized to "combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics".
Our World in Data, a website associated with the University of Oxford, has emerged as a leading tool for tracking vaccination delivery and to understand the protective effects of vaccination, its side effects, and people's attitudes towards vaccination. It shows the Zionist regime’s "remarkable achievement in vaccinating many of its citizens”.
However, "it omits the fact that, as an occupying power, Israel has failed to fulfill its obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention to provide vaccines to all 4.5 million Palestinians living under its military occupation, as affirmed by leading Palestinian, Israeli and international health and human rights organizations," the letter read.
The charities added that the Zionist regime has vaccinated a percentage of "its population" without counting the population under its military control is "legally incorrect and morally problematic".
Our World in Data agreed with their concern that the population living in Palestine should be taken into account but declined to change its way of tracking the rollout in a written response that was shared with the Independent.
The Zionist regime has been widely criticized for intentionally barring Palestinians from getting vaccinated in the midst of a pandemic, as it is obligated to do under international law as an occupying power.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have said the exclusion means the regime is "ignoring its obligations" as an occupying force under international law and "exposes Israel's institutionalized discrimination."