People’s Vaccine -Asia to Demand Fair Access to Health Services in Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip -ActionAid Palestine (AAP) and Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Social Development Forum(SDF)` launched different activities within People’s Vaccine Alliance – Asia (PVA) to demand equitable provision and access to quality health services. Those activities also demanded to remove restrictions hindering the work of health system as they are caused by illegal blockade on the Gaza Strip. These activities are part of PVA - Asia which includes more than 100 institutions supported by experts, Nobel Prize winners, economists, international personalities and activists working together to demand ensuring free access to a vaccine for all peoples and ending inequality in the distribution of vaccine and health services.
The implementation of this project in the Palestinian context came to shed light on the reality of health services in the Gaza Strip during the Corona pandemic and during the distribution of vaccines under blockade and the repeated Israeli military wars against the Gaza Strip between 2021 and 2022. These activities also seek to document a number of Israeli occupation practices causing violations to the right of health and equitable access to a vaccine against COVID-19. One of those practices, is obstructing the arrival of vaccine, equipment, medical materials and medical diagnosis for the Corona virus, by banning their entry through the crossings and borders of the Gaza Strip. Those actions have limited the ability of the population and civil, governmental, and international institutions to respond to the pandemic and invalidate the effectiveness of vaccines.
Several awareness and advocacy activities were carried out including release of fact sheet and the production of a documentary film in partnership with Al Mezan Center for Human Rights on the impact of the practices of the Israeli occupation authorities and the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip on health care during the Corona pandemic. This factsheet showed the most important health and preventive gaps that the health sector suffered from in Gaza Strip during the Corona pandemic, such as the lack of medicines and medical supplies, obstruction of the work of the power station necessary to operate the electricity power station, and depriving residents and detainees of obtaining the vaccine in the first phase of vaccination. Short documentaries were also produced to document the health and psychological conditions of health sector workers during the Corona pandemic and the military escalation against the Gaza Strip. These conditions have increased the loads of health workers and weakened the health system which in turn impede national and international efforts to combat the pandemic and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in an unprecedented way.
AAP worked with the SDF to train young Palestinian women and men to organize digital advocacy campaigns to demand better health services in Gaza Strip. Two webinars were organized between Palestinian youth and their peers in some Asian countries, specifically in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, to exchange information about the extent to which justice has been achieved in the distribution of vaccines and safe access to it from different groups of society. These webinars sought to develop collective action that contributes to mobilizing pressure and intensifying advocacy efforts on an important issue facing many countries of the world, especially the countries of the South and Asia, where access to free and fair and safe vaccine is denied. They also aimed to hold responsible authorities accountable for the lack of a fair distribution of vaccines and to document the role of young men and women during the pandemic. These webinars were organized in cooperation with ActionAid International offices in the previous countries.
These activities seek in general to convey facts to the institutions and members of PVA-Asia about the Palestinian health reality and raise their awareness about the main reasons for the weakness of the Palestinian health system and lack of justice in the distribution of vaccines and the response to the pandemic in the Gaza Strip. Through this alliance, these activities will also demand Asian governments to essentially practice pressure on Israel to adhere to international laws and ensure equitable access to health services. They will also demand the international community to seriously move and exert pressure on Israel to lift blockade imposed on Gaza Strip and put an end for policies of apartheid.
PVA-Asia aims to implement different strategic initiatives including advocacy, lobbying, campaigning, research and raising awareness. Those activities are implemented to demand governments to address gaps and inequality in public health sector, prioritise the delivery of vaccine to marginalized groups and facilitate free and fair distribution of vaccine and end monopolies of vaccine big pharmaceutical corporations to ensure access of poor peoples to Vaccine.
Background Information
ActionAid in Palestine (AAP) is a part of global federation working for social justice and gender equality and eradicate poverty in more than 45 countries around the world. AAP started its work in Palestine in 2007 to strengthen the resilience of Palestinian People as ActionAid believes that they should enjoy their rights to freedom, justice and self-determination. AAP implements a number of programs through its engagement with communities and women and youth groups seeking to empower them and enhance their influential civil and political participation to understand their rights and undertake collective activism to address the protracted rights violations resulting from the prolonged occupation of Palestine. AAP works simultaneously to enhance their leadership capacity and knowledge to practice their citizenship in holding authorities and other duty bearers to account.
For more information, please contact
Riham Jafari
Coordinator of Advocacy and Communication in Palestine
Mobile:
+972 (0) 595242890
Office:
+972 (0) (2) 22 13 137
Email: