Israel's attorney general on Thursday said a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ship surplus coronavirus vaccines to a group of friendly nations has been frozen while he determines whether the move was legal.
In a statement, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said he had received a number of requests to review Netanyahu's decision. One of those requests, he said, came from Netanyahu's national security adviser, who told him he had been instructed, apparently by the prime minister, to "freeze any action on the matter."
Earlier Thursday, Defense Minister Benny Gantz called for a halt in the shipments, saying Israel's stockpile of vaccines is the property of the state. He attacked the prime minister's go-it-alone approach and questioned Netanyahu's claims that there are really excess supplies when Israelis still have not been fully vaccinated.
“This is not the first time that significant defense and diplomatic decisions are being made behind the backs of the relevant bodies, while possibly damaging our national security, our foreign relations, and the rule of law,” Gantz wrote. “This is a pattern which impinges upon our ability to manage the country soundly.”
He demanded the matter be brought before the country's Security Cabinet for discussions and said he had asked the attorney general for an opinion.
"I welcome the decision to freeze the transfer of vaccines to other countries," Gantz, who is serving in Netanyahu's government while preparing to face off against him in an election next month, said on Twitter after Mandelblit's move.
Netanyahu has staked his political success on Israel’s successful vaccination drive, in which about half of the country’s 9.3 million people have been inoculated in just under two months.
Despite the freeze, Israel's Army radio station reported that one delivery had already landed in Honduras.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel has hundreds of thousands of surplus vaccines and announced he personally decided to share a small quantity of them with several friendly countries he did not name as a mostly symbolic thank-you “in return for things we already have received.”
