There is an old, corrugated hanger in the centre of Maseru, the diminutive capital of the kingdom of Lesotho and through the doors we could hear the words of prayer.
Inside, amongst the wings and tails of several brightly coloured aeroplanes, there were medics and mechanics getting themselves ready for the day ahead.
Lesotho’s Flying Doctor Services serve 11 isolated clinics in this rugged and impoverished nation.
The government-run unit is assisted by a Christian charity called the Mission Aviation Fellowship and together they provide medical services and emergency treatment to communities that are completely inaccessible by road.
Image: The flying doctors unit, helped by a Christian charity, delivers a small batch of vaccines to a community called Kuebunyani
Yet the team that runs this service has been presented with a new and weighty task.
As COVID-19 spreads and mutates in southern Africa, its members have been asked to deliver and administer vaccines to much of the nation.
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Lesotho acquired a batch of 36,000 AstraZeneca vaccines through the UN-backed COVAX facility in March and health workers were prioritised for their first dose.
The French government donated an additional consignment to ensure they are fully protected but the vast majority of 2.2 million Basothos have yet to receive a vaccine.
The flying doctors are doing what they can and we followed them for the day as they delivered a small batch of vaccines to a community called Kuebunyani.
It was a complicated trip as the pilot had to pick up a box of AstraZeneca vaccines in another community, called Thaba Tskeko. Its hospital still had a few vials left.
Image: Flying Doctor Services’ medic, Dr Justin Cishiya, talks to Sky’s John Sparks
“How many vaccines have you got now,” I asked the Flying Doctor Services medic, Dr Justin Cishiya.
“For now we are having 30 doses.”
“How many are you going to need in total?”
“In total, we will need, let me estimate, two million doses.”
We strapped our precious box in the back of the plane and headed east in the direction of Kuebunyani.
Image: Kuebunyani clings to the slopes of the Maloti range and the pilot had to negotiate its rudimentary airstrip
This district of some 10,000 people clings to the slopes of the Maloti range and the pilot had to negotiate its rudimentary airstrip.
Our cargo was then handed over to a nurse called Paul Enock.
“How many people have been vaccinated here so far?” I asked.
Image: Lesotho’s Flying Doctor Services serve 11 isolated clinics in the rugged and impoverished nation
“So far 73, yes, mostly the village health workers and the health centre committee and some of our staff members.”
“You are going to need a lot more,” I said.
“Yes, especially for the people (who live) here, yes.”
Image: Lesotho acquired a batch of 36,000 AstraZeneca vaccines through the COVAX scheme
It may be an isolated spot but the message has gone out about COVID-19 as the third wave of infection begins to take hold in Africa.
Cases are on an upward trend in 14 countries and in the past week, new cases rose by more than 30% in eight countries.
In Kuebunyani, we watched as local residents begin to congregate. Some had left their homes the day before to reach the clinic.
Image: One doctor said Lesotho needs an estimated two million vaccines
I stopped a 77-year old called Frank Molefi.
“Why do you want to get a COVID vaccine?” I asked.
“It is you (the health workers) who told me to come here,” he said, bursting into laughter.
“Do you think the virus could come here to the mountains?”
Image: People in Kuebunyani receive the vaccine
“Here? Of course, it will come here because human beings live here.”
Several village health workers, a local official and a handful of senior citizens with chronic conditions were offered these precious vaccines and one man told us he felt fortunate to receive one.
The supply of vaccines to Africa has ground to a halt with the India-based makers of the AstraZeneca vaccine now concentrating production at home.
The distribution of Johnson & Johnson vaccines has been blocked after a batch was contaminated in the United States.
Sky News understands there are one million J&J vaccines “ready to be shipped within an hour” from a factory in neighbouring South Africa but the manufacturer cannot get clearance to move them.
Image: Only 1% of the public has been inoculated in sub-Saharan Africa
In response the World Health Organisation and others are pleading with wealthy nations to move immediately and donate their stocks.
Seven countries have said they will make contributions via COVAX but only France has actually delivered the goods.
As we left Kuebunyani we asked an administrative nurse, Mampho Leleka, what she thought of the discrepancy in vaccines between rich and poor countries.
“We are not comfortable, it is not fair at all. It has to be rolled out as (quickly) as possible because this pandemic is killing people.”
This mountain kingdom – like much of Africa – has been left behind in the race to vaccinate the public.
Only 1% of the public has been inoculated in sub-Saharan Africa. But this shapeshifting virus is encircling the world and the protection of Basothos should become everyone’s responsibility.
Two things can be true at the same time – an adage so apt for the past day.
This was the Trump show. There’s no question about that. It was a show called by him, pulled off for him, attended by leaders who had no other choice and all because he craves the ego boost.
But the day was also an unquestionable and game-changing geopolitical achievement.
Image: World leaders, including Trump and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, pose for a family photo. Pic: Reuters
Trump stopped the war, he stopped the killing, he forced Hamas to release all the hostages, he demanded Israel to free prisoners held without any judicial process, he enabled aid to be delivered to Gaza, and he committed everyone to a roadmap, of sorts, ahead.
He did all that and more.
He also made the Israel-Palestine conflict, which the world has ignored for decades, a cause that European and Middle Eastern nations are now committed to invest in. No one, it seems, can ignore Trump.
Love him or loathe him, those are remarkable achievements.
‘Focus of a goldfish’
The key question now is – will he stay the course?
One person central to the negotiations which have led us to this point said to me last week that Trump has the “focus of a goldfish”.
Image: Benjamin Netanyahu applauds while Trump addresses the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Pic: Reuters
It’s true that he tends to have a short attention span. If things are not going his way, and it looks likely that he won’t turn out to be the winner, he quickly moves on and blames someone else.
So, is there a danger of that with this? Let’s check in on it all six months from now (I am willing to be proved wrong – the Trump-show is truly hard to chart), but my judgement right now is that he will stay the course with this one for several reasons.
First, precisely because of the show he has created around this. Surely, he won’t want it all to fall apart now?
He has invested so much personal reputation in all this, I’d argue that even he wouldn’t want to drop it, even when the going gets tough – which it will.
Second, the Abraham Accords. They represented his signature foreign policy achievement in his first term – the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Muslim world.
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4:48
Trump’s peace summit: As it happened
Back in his first presidency, he tried to push the accords through without solving the Palestinian question. It didn’t work.
This time, he’s grasped the nettle. Now he wants to bring it all together in a grand bargain. He’s doing it for peace but also, of course, for the business opportunities – to help “make America great again”.
Peace – and prosperity – in the Middle East is good for America. It’s also good for Trump Inc. He and his family are going to get even richer from a prosperous Middle East.
Then there is the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn’t win it this year. He was never going to – nominations had to be in by January.
But next year he really could win – especially if he solves the Ukraine challenge too.
If he could bring his coexistence and unity vibe to his own country – rather than stoking the division – he may stand an even greater chance of winning.
One of the most high-profile and influential Palestinian politicians has told Sky News that Donald Trump is now “calling the shots” for Israel – and warned it “doesn’t make sense” to have a Western-led government ruling Gaza or the return of a “British mandate” under Sir Tony Blair.
Nasser al-Qudwa, 72, insisted Hamas should be involved in the territory’s future and that a new structure is needed that would allow a single authority to govern both the West Bank and Gaza.
Al-Qudwa is strongly tipped for a return to the front line of politics, either within the existing Palestinian Authority or a new framework for Gaza.
Image: Nasser al-Qudwa. Pic: Reuters
Since leaving his role as foreign minister for the Palestinian Authority in 2006, he has served in a variety of roles, including as a diplomat at the United Nations and as head of the Yasser Arafat Foundation.
Al-Qudwa is the nephew of Arafat, ex-chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who died in 2004 aged 75.
Image: Yasser Arafat at the White House in 1993. Pic: AP
Trump’s proposal ‘doesn’t make sense’
Al-Qudwa has just been welcomed back into the central committee of Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority, the governing body of the West Bank.
Asked how he feels about the prospect of an international body ruling Gaza, including both Mr Trump and Sir Tony, he told Sky News: “The Palestinian people do not deserve to be put under international trusteeship or guardianship.
“And definitely it does not deserve to be put on the British mandate again.
“The whole notion that you are bringing a Western land to build a lot in Gaza after all these sacrifices and all this bloodshed, it doesn’t make sense.”
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0:33
Blair asked about Gaza peace board
Netanyahu ‘not calling the shots’
Al-Qudwa is a strong advocate for a two-state solution and says the only way to stem the anger of Palestinian youths “is to give them a better life”.
Asked if he was confident Israel would observe the ceasefire and move into the second phase of the Trump plan, Al-Qudwa said: “I don’t trust anybody.
“But, to be frank with you, I don’t think it’s the Israeli leader that’s calling the shots.
“I think it’s Mr Donald Trump. And he has promised that repeatedly.
“It’s going to be difficult because the second phase is going to be more difficult. But I do hope that it’s going to happen because we need it to.”
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0:42
Trump asks Israel’s president to pardon Netanyahu
A role for Hamas
Al-Qudwa wants a new unitary governing body for the West Bank and Gaza “that is organically linked… to ensure the territorial integrity and the unity of the Palestinian people”.
He said under his model, Hamas would be invited to be part of the political landscape. It would be a different form of Hamas – a political party rather than an organisation with a military wing.
“It would be a different Hamas,” said al-Qudwa. “What is missing from the debate is the serious, comprehensive positions. I spoke about ending the role of Hamas in Gaza, ending the control of Hamas over Gaza in all its forms, political, administrative, as well as security, which means the official body needs to have control over weapons.
“And then I think it’s very right to transform into a political party and then participate in the Palestinian political life, including elections under Palestinian law enforcement.”
Image: Donald Trump and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Pic: Reuters
Despite being closely linked to a future role in Gaza, al-Qudwa, who was born in Khan Younis in the south of the strip, said you would have to be “crazy” to want to work in the territory now.
He cast doubt over the plan to have elections within a year of the war coming to an end, saying it was impossible to imagine how you could hold such a logistically demanding event in a ruined country like Gaza.
Israel’s war in Gaza, launched following the killing of 1,200 people and capture of 251 more by Hamas during its October 7 attacks, has seen more than 67,000 Gazans killed, according to Palestinian health officials. Its figures don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half of the victims are women and children.
But al-Qudwa pointedly refused to deny speculation about his future ambitions.
Asked if he would be interested in becoming the next president of the Palestinian Authority, after Mahmoud Abbas, al-Qudwa simply smiled.
“There is no vacancy,” he said.
“That’s not a no,” I suggested. “It’s also not a yes,” he replied.
These were the people being sent back to the West Bank as part of the ceasefire deal – the people exchanged for the hostages.
The welcome they got was chaotic and joyful, just like previous prisoner releases. But there was something different this time – a changed, charged atmosphere and a heavier police presence.
Image: Palestinians in Ramallah greet relatives released from Israeli prisons. Pic: AP
And as the minutes passed by, the sense of joy was also pockmarked by pockets of utter sadness.
At first, it was a mistake. We saw a woman in floods of tears watching as prisoners filed off the two buses, showing victory signs at the waiting crowds. She had come to meet a cousin, but was sure that somehow he had been missed out and left behind. Her tears flowed until, some time later, she found him.
But others were not so fortunate. Overnight, the Israeli authorities had decided to increase the number of prisoners deemed dangerous enough to be denied a return to the West Bank.
Instead, this group, which makes up the majority of the 250 released prisoners, was taken to Gaza and released. Then they get the choice of whether to stay in Gaza or to be deported to another country – possibly Egypt or Turkey.
It is one thing to be taken back to Gaza if you are Gazan. But for the prisoners who come from the West Bank, and who are confronted by the apocalyptic wasteland left behind by war, it is a ticket to deportation, and the knowledge they can never return to their homeland.
You can only get to the West Bank by going through Israeli checkpoints or passport checks. And, clearly, having been deported, you won’t be allowed back in.
And so it is that we see Ghadeer in floods of tears. She is a police officer, in her uniform, and she runs back to the sanctuary of her car, to cry.
Image: A crowd gathers around a bus carrying released Palestinian prisoners. Pic: AP
‘Psychological terror’
Her sister Abeer is also here, and also distraught. Their brother, who they expected to collect, has been taken to Gaza. They did not know until they got here, and realised he had not emerged from the bus.
Her cousin, Yahya, is also here: “We got a call from my cousin last night, and then we got a written warning taped on our door saying that we weren’t allowed to celebrate.
“At midnight, they moved him south, and then to Gaza, all without our knowledge. We came here to see him, and we were shocked that he wasn’t on the bus.
“It is part of their playbook – psychological terror, playing with our emotions, and those of the prisoners.”
To Israel, the release of these prisoners has been a cause of soul-searching, criticised by some as a reckless action that frees terrorists. But for Palestinians, these prisoners are a blend of freedom fighters and political prisoners, some of whom have spent years in detention despite never facing criminal trial.
The prisoners have been told not to celebrate after their release, and these are warnings they take seriously. One man tells us: “I can’t talk, but I am happy.” Another simply says” “I can’t say anything today – come back tomorrow.”
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1:28
Could recognition of Palestine change the West Bank?
‘They are taking our soul’
But another tells us he is “ashamed” that it could have taken the death of so many people in Gaza to secure his release. Emotions run high.
Among the crowds, we see Aman Nafa. Her husband is Nael Barghouti, who has spent 45 years in prison – more than any other Palestinian prisoner – and is now in exile in Turkey. He’s banned from returning, she’s banned from visiting him.
I ask her about the ceasefire, and the chances of a new beginning between Israel and the Palestinians. She bristles.
“They don’t want any peace with us,” she says. “They just want to take the land. It’s like our soul – they are taking our soul. They are torturing us.”
I ask her about her emotions on a day when the focus of the world is on the return of the hostages.
“Double standards,” she says, “but the people around the world – they know what is happening in Palestine. We are not against Jewish people. We are against the Zionists who want to empty our land and take it.”
Acrimony, mistrust, and the fear of tomorrow are endemic among many in the West Bank. A ceasefire in Gaza has soothed some nerves, but, so far at least, it hasn’t addressed the fundamental problems.