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.



Russia Says Last Ukrainian Troops Expelled from Kursk Region, Kyiv Denies Assertion

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
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Russia Says Last Ukrainian Troops Expelled from Kursk Region, Kyiv Denies Assertion

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed on Saturday what he said was the complete failure of an offensive by Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region after Moscow said they had been expelled from the last village they had been holding.

Russia also confirmed for the first time that North Korean soldiers have been fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk, with the chief of the military General Staff praising their "heroism" in helping to drive out the Ukrainians.

However, Kyiv denied that its forces had been expelled from Kursk and said they were also still operating in Belgorod, another Russian region bordering Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces seized a swathe of territory in Kursk region last August in a surprise incursion that embarrassed Putin. Russian forces, later reinforced by North Korean troops, have been trying ever since to drive them out.

Putin, speaking amid intensified diplomatic efforts by the Trump administration to end the Ukraine conflict, said the expulsion of Ukrainian forces from Russian soil opened the way for further Russian successes inside Ukraine.

"The Kyiv regime's adventure has completely failed," Putin said in video footage released by the Kremlin that showed him receiving a report from the head of Russia's general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

"The full defeat of the enemy in the Kursk border region creates conditions for further successful actions by our forces on other important parts of the front," Putin added.

Gerasimov told Putin that the last occupied settlement in the Kursk region, the village of Gornal, had been "liberated from Ukrainian units" on Saturday.

"Thus, the defeat of the armed formations of the Ukrainian armed forces that had invaded the Kursk region has been completed," Gerasimov said.

The Ukrainian military, in a statement later posted on social media platform Telegram, said its forces were continuing their operations in some districts of Kursk region.

Ukraine also denied Gerasimov's assertion that all Ukrainian "sabotage groups" had been "liquidated" in Belgorod region, where Kyiv's forces launched an incursion last month.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield assertions of either side.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the armed forces were now helping authorities in the Kursk region to restore "peaceful life" and to remove mines planted there.

NORTH KOREANS

Gerasimov praised the North Korean officers and soldiers' contribution in Kursk, saying they had shown "high professionalism, fortitude, courage and heroism", fulfilling combat tasks "shoulder to shoulder" with Russian servicemen.

North Korea sent an estimated total of 14,000 troops, including 3,000 reinforcements to replace its losses, Ukrainian officials said. Lacking armored vehicles and drone warfare experience, they took heavy casualties but adapted quickly.

Russia had previously neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean troops in Kursk.

Russia's military cooperation with North Korea has grown rapidly since Moscow became internationally isolated after invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Kyiv says North Korea has supplied Russia with vast amounts of artillery shells as well as rocket systems, thousands of troops and ballistic missiles, which Moscow began using for strikes against Ukraine at the end of 2023.

Russia and North Korea have denied weapons transfers, which would violate UN embargoes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had hoped his forces' seizure of Russian territory would give him a bargaining chip in any future talks to end the war in his country.

Zelenskiy held what the White House described as a "very productive" meeting with US President Donald Trump on Saturday in Rome, where both leaders were attending the funeral of Pope Francis.

Trump is pressuring Zelenskiy to agree to give up some Ukrainian territory to help end the three-year war that has caused large-scale casualties and devastation in cities, towns and villages across Ukraine.