Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, and Transportation Minister Miri Regev have decided during a meeting to restrict the number of Israelis allowed to enter the country daily to 200, from next week, according to Hebrew media reports.
Ben-Gurion Airport has been mostly closed since late January, to avoid the import of coronavirus strains. Those who returned to the country were ordered by the government into state-run isolation hotels, though many managed to get a dispensation to quarantine at home.
A Knesset committee, however, has refused to extend the hotel order further, requiring the government to find other solutions. As a result, in the interim, the government will limit the number of travelers to 200 until a legally viable monitoring system can be established, reports say.
Humanitarian exceptions will be made.
The departure hall at the almost empty Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on January 25, 2021. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
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