This picture taken from the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on February 15, 2021, shows the border fence with the Syrian governorate of Quneitra. (JALAA MAREY / AFP)
Israel agreed to buy hundreds of thousands of doses of Russian-made coronavirus vaccine for Syria as part of a prisoner swap deal, the Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday, without saying where it got the information.
According to the report, the vaccine purchase was stipulated in a secret clause in a Russian-brokered deal to return an Israeli woman who crossed the border into Syria. In exchange, Israel agreed to return two shepherds who crossed from Syria into Israeli territory, and pardoned a Druze woman from the Israeli-held section of the Golan Heights who had been sentenced to community service. The Ynet website said she was convicted of monitoring and photographing Israeli soldiers along the frontier.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said only that Israel didn’t give the Syrians any vaccine from its own inventory, Ynet said. He didn’t comment directly on whether Israel bought Russian-made vaccines for Syria.Syria’s state-run SANA news agency denied the report of the vaccine clause, saying it was a lie meant to improve Israel’s image.