Israel ‘Leads the Way’ with 4th COVID Jabs for Vulnerable

 An Israeli man receives a fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. (AFP)
An Israeli man receives a fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. (AFP)
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Israel ‘Leads the Way’ with 4th COVID Jabs for Vulnerable

 An Israeli man receives a fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. (AFP)
An Israeli man receives a fourth dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. (AFP)

Israel on Friday started giving fourth Covid vaccine shots to people with weakened immunity, becoming one of the first countries to do so in hopes of countering a case surge driven by the Omicron variant.

The effort comes almost exactly one year after Israel began a massive vaccination drive on the back of a data-sharing accord with US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer.

Israel's health ministry on Thursday approved giving a fourth shot for immunocompromised people, the same day that authorities reported more than 4,000 new cases of the disease, a high not seen since September.

Heart transplant patients were among the first to receive the additional shots at Sheba hospital in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, where health workers received test injections this week.

"I was worried at the start but after speaking to my doctor I felt reassured that it was a good thing to do, that it would help," said a 50-year-old woman, Rinat Orion, among the first to receive the fourth shot.

Galia Rahav, a doctor, said: "We had good results with the third dose which only caused secondary effects such as light, localized pain. We can't wait to see the results of this fourth dose."

Cardiologist Yael Peled said it would "increase protection against coronavirus".

'Confront the wave'
Israel on Friday also added residents of retirement homes and geriatric patients to those eligible to take the fourth dose.

"This decision was taken for fear of an increase in cases of contamination in such institutions that would endanger the health of these people," the health ministry said.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said Israel, which was among the first countries in the world to offer a third shot to the general public, will be a trailblazer for the fourth jab.

"Israel will lead the way in administering a fourth vaccine to the Israeli people," he said.

Chile has announced it will also offer a fourth shot to at-risk people starting in February, while health authorities in Britain and Germany are considering following suit.

More than four million people out of an Israeli population of 9.2 million have received three shots of coronavirus vaccine.

The health ministry said Thursday that Israel will not let up in its fight against the latest Covid-19 variant.

"Our strategy to confront Omicron is clear: the stronger the wave, the more protection we'll need to confront it," the ministry said.

On another front in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic, an Israeli El Al plane flew in Thursday from Belgium carrying a shipment of Pfizer's anti-Covid pill, Paxlovid.

On Friday, Israel recorded a 24-hour tally of 4,916 new coronavirus cases, an increase of 152 percent over the same day last week.

According to researchers at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, new daily infections could rise to 15,000 or even 20,000 within the next 10 days.

A total of almost 1.4 million cases of Covid infection, including 8,243 deaths, have been officially recorded in Israel.



UN Says Has ‘Credible’ Evidence Israeli Forces Sexually Abused Detained Palestinians 

14 May 2025, Berlin: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gives a press conference at the German Federal Chancellery. (dpa)
14 May 2025, Berlin: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gives a press conference at the German Federal Chancellery. (dpa)
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UN Says Has ‘Credible’ Evidence Israeli Forces Sexually Abused Detained Palestinians 

14 May 2025, Berlin: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gives a press conference at the German Federal Chancellery. (dpa)
14 May 2025, Berlin: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gives a press conference at the German Federal Chancellery. (dpa)

The UN chief warned Israel that the United Nations has “credible information” of sexual violence and other violations by Israeli forces against detained Palestinians, which Israel’s UN ambassador dismissed as “baseless accusations.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to Ambassador Danny Danon that he is “gravely concerned” about reported violations against Palestinians by Israeli military and security forces in several prisons, a detention center and a military base.

Guterres said he was putting Israeli forces on notice that they could be listed as abusers in his next report on sexual violence in conflict “due to significant concerns of patterns of certain forms of sexual violence that have been consistently documented by the United Nations.”

Danon, who circulated the letter and his response Tuesday, said the allegations “are steeped in biased publications.”

“The UN must focus on the shocking war crimes and sexual violence of Hamas and the release of all hostages,” he said.

Danon was referring to the group's surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, where some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage. Israeli authorities said women were raped and sexually abused.

The Hamas attack triggered the ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed more than 61,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but that about half were women and children.

Danon stressed that “Israel will not shy away from protecting its citizens and will continue to act in accordance with international law.”

Because Israel has denied access to UN monitors, it has been “challenging to make a definitive determination” about patterns, trends and the systematic use of sexual violence by its forces, Guterres said in the letter.

He urged Israel’s government “to take the necessary measures to ensure immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violence, and make and implement specific time-bound commitments.”

The secretary-general said these should include investigations of credible allegations, clear orders and codes of conduct for military and security forces that prohibit sexual violence, and unimpeded access for UN monitors.

In March, UN-backed human rights experts accused Israel of “the systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence.”

The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said it documented a range of violations perpetrated against Palestinian women, men, girls and boys and accused Israeli security forces of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian detainees.

At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the UN Human Rights Council, which commissioned the team of independent experts, as an “anti-Israel circus” that “has long been exposed as an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting, and irrelevant body.” His statement did not address the findings themselves.