Tel Aviv, June 20 (IANS) Israel's Ministry of Health said the Covid-19 vaccine shipment to the Palestinian Authority was "totally normal", which the latter rejected cancelled as it did not match the specifications.

The Ministry's statement on Saturday came a day after Palestine cancelled the agreement under which Israel was to deliver to the West Bank 1 million to 1.4 million doses of vaccine that are about to expire, 100,000 of which were already transferred to the West Bank, reports Xinhua news agency.

In exchange, Israel was supposed to regain the same amount of vaccines from Palestinian Authority during September-October.

However, after the first shipment was delivered, the Palestinian government announced the cancellation, explaining that its Health Ministry's specialists found out the vaccines received from Israel did not match the specifications.

In response, the Israeli Health Ministry said in the statement that the Palestinian Ministry had received fine Pfizer vaccines, with expiry dates that were known, agreed upon, and consistent with the agreement.

"The vaccines given to the Palestinians are identical in every way to the vaccines currently being given to Israeli citizens," the Israeli Ministry noted.

"We hope that the Palestinian Authority's vaccination campaign will begin soon," it added.

--IANS ksk/