Live Update 
From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Bennett: Lockdown is the last possible resort
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett leads a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on August 8, 2021. (Ohad Zwigenberg/POOL)
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says lockdown is a last resort to counter rising COVID cases.
“If the citizens of Israel will continue to get vaccinated, we can overcome Delta,” Bennett says in a live primetime address. “Lockdown is the easy option… but it destroys the future of the country. We’ve chosen the hard way.”
The prime minister says lockdown is “a last possible resort, only once all the other options have been tried.”
Bennett lauds the US decision to recommend booster doses for its own population, weeks after Israel began doing so. “The third dose gives us better protection than after the first and second,” he says. “More than a million Israelis have received the third vaccine, but many have still not.”
If you’d like to comment, join
The Times of Israel Community.
The Times of Israel Community.
JOIN THE TOI COMMUNITY
Already a member? Log in here