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Egypt Receives New Batch of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine

An Egyptian medical worker administers a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine (Covishield) on 4 March 2021 in Cairo on the first day of vaccination in Egypt (AFP)
An Egyptian medical worker administers a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine (Covishield) on 4 March 2021 in Cairo on the first day of vaccination in Egypt (AFP)
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Egypt Receives New Batch of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine

An Egyptian medical worker administers a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine (Covishield) on 4 March 2021 in Cairo on the first day of vaccination in Egypt (AFP)
An Egyptian medical worker administers a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine (Covishield) on 4 March 2021 in Cairo on the first day of vaccination in Egypt (AFP)

Egypt on Saturday received around 1.4 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as part of the global COVAX agreement, the health ministry said.

COVAX was established by the Geneva-based GAVI vaccine alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) for the equitable distribution of vaccines.

The shipment is part of a 500-million-dose donation from the United States to the countries of the African Union through COVAX.

The government stressed that it is keen to provide vaccines to its citizens for free through permanent cooperation with international organizations and bodies to address the pandemic.

Health Minister Hala Zayed said that Egypt received 1,398,150 doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the US government as part of the country’s plan to diversify vaccine sources.

Health Ministry spokesperson Khaled Megahed said the two-dose Pfizer vaccine has been approved by WHO and the Egyptian Drug Authority, noting that the shipment will be analyzed in the laboratories of the EDA before being distributed to the 1,100 vaccination centers spread across the country.

Egypt will receive on Monday the third batch of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, obtaining more than one million doses in cooperation with the African Union.

Meanwhile, the health ministry urged citizens to “register on its website to receive their vaccine doses.”

Egypt recorded 885 COVID-19 infections and 44 deaths in the past 24 hours. In a statement, the Health Ministry said the total number of confirmed infections amounted to 322,852, including 272,505 recoveries, and 18,195 deaths.

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Gaza Civil Defense Describes Medic Killings as 'Summary Executions'

A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
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Gaza Civil Defense Describes Medic Killings as 'Summary Executions'

A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP

Gaza's civil defense agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out "summary executions" in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

The medics and other rescue workers were killed when responding to distress calls near Gaza's southern city of Rafah early on March 23, days into Israel's renewed offensive in the Hamas-run territory, AFP reported.

Among those killed were eight Red Crescent staff members, six from the Gaza civil defense rescue agency and one employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.

"The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation's narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions," Mohammed Al-Mughair, a civil defense official, told AFP, accusing Israel of seeking to "circumvent" its obligations under international law.

Following the shooting, the Red Crescent released a video recovered from the phone of one of the victims. It does not show executions, but it does directly contradict the version of events initially put forward by the Israeli military.

In particular, the video shows clearly that the ambulances were travelling with sirens, flashing lights and headlights on. The military had claimed the ambulances were travelling "suspiciously" and without lights.

- Operational failures -

The incident drew international condemnation, including concern about possible war crimes from UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk.

An Israeli military investigation into the incident released on Sunday "found no evidence to support claims of execution" or "indiscriminate fire" by its troops, but admitted to operational failures and said it was firing a field commander.

It said six of those killed were militants, revising an earlier claim that nine of the men were fighters.

The dead, who were buried in sand by Israeli forces, were only recovered several days after the attack from what the UN human rights agency OCHA described as a "mass grave".

The Palestine Red Crescent Society denounced the report as "full of lies".

"It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different," Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, told AFP.

The Israeli investigation said there were three shooting incidents in the area on that day.

In the first, soldiers shot at what they believed to be a Hamas vehicle.

In the second, around an hour later, troops fired "on suspects emerging from a fire truck and ambulances", the military said.

The probe determined that the fire in the first two incidents resulted from an "operational misunderstanding by the troops".

In the third incident, the troops fired at a UN vehicle "due to operational errors in breach of regulations", the military said.