Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saka.

My guest today is a key player in Israel's world-leading COVID-19 vaccination program,

and health minister Yuli Edelstein, a veteran political ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

never misses an opportunity to proclaim his government's success.

But is Israel's COVID response really such a positive story? The country's infection rate

remains stubbornly high, and the government has just banned air travel in the latest

desperate effort to reduce the spread of the virus.

The country's ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities have become places of high tension,

as police have stepped up efforts to stop residents flouting the restrictions on schooling and socialising. And then there are the accusations that Israel is flouting international law in its refusal to offer the

vaccine to millions of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. The Netanyahu

government rejects the idea it has an obligation to do so, but that is a position that has drawn

fire from within the country as well as overseas.

Could it be that Israel's impressive vaccination effort is masking serious problems with the

government's handling of the pandemic? Well, Yuli Edelstein joins me now from Jerusalem.

Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to have you on the show. And let us start with the very good news. Israel does

appear to lead the world with the speed of the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program.

Explain to me exactly where you are today and how you're doing it.

Well, first of all, we have good numbers.

We have about 27, 28% of our population already vaccinated.

We are talking mostly about people at risk.

We define them as 60 plus, and we have about 80% already

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