PA refuses second medical shipment from UAE because it went through Israel

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Wednesday refused a second planeload of medical supplies from the United Arab Emirates. These supplies are intended to help fight coronavirus, but the PA has once again shown its disdain for Israel is greater than its desire to help its own people, refusing it because the flight went through Israel.

The Etihad Airways flight, which landed in Israel on Tuesday, was the second airborne delivery of humanitarian cargo by the UAE that the Palestinian Arabs say they have turned down in a month.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it had helped coordinate the flight and that the aid was to be transferred by the United Nations to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

“Proud of @IsraelMFA’s role in facilitating the arrival of the @etihad cargo plane,” Foreign Ministry director Yuval Rotem tweeted Tuesday. “We hope that future ETIHAD flights landing here will be carrying #UAE tourists.”

Proud of @IsraelMFA's role in facilitating the arrival of the @etihad cargo plane which landed in 🇮🇱 after flying from #AbuDhabi, carrying humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

We hope that future ETIHAD flights landing here will be carrying #UAE tourists.

📷: Moni Shafir & IAA pic.twitter.com/j6KXjZRpV8

— Yuval Rotem 🇮🇱 (@Yuval_Rotem) June 9, 2020

The reason for the refusal, the PA insisted, was that the UAE had not coordinated the matter with them directly and that it, therefore, could not accept the aid, whose delivery via plane to Tel Aviv was seen as a step toward the normalization of ties between Israel and the Gulf states.

“We refuse to receive it because it was coordinated directly between Israel and them (the UAE),” the PA’s “civil affairs minister” Hussein al-Sheikh said.

“We were not part of the coordination,” he added.

It is reported that the two shipments of aid include equipment to help combat the Coronavirus pandemic and includes ventilators. The Palestinian leadership have asked for aid, but they are now rejecting aid sent via Israel. It is the latest example of their disdain for Israel overriding their desire to want to help their own people. The Palestinians deserve better.