Health Ministry director dismisses Bennett’s call to transfer crisis management to Defense Ministry

Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman-Tov dismisses the call by Defense Minister Naftali Bennett for responsibility of managing the pandemic to be transferred to his office.

Bar Siman-Tov tells Channel 12 that his office is managing the crisis in cooperation with the Defense Ministry and there’s no need to create a different hierarchy. “We all need to work together,” he says, “and that is the way we are working.”

He says his ministry is not to blame for fewer tests being done than wished because of a shortage of kits. “Yesterday we did 9,000 tests,” he said, claiming is Israel doing better than most other countries. “The whole world is confronting the same… very complex problems.”

“The fact that we are holding discussions about an exit strategy from the crisis is a privilege,” he says.