Netanyahu: We opened economy too early
J’lem, Beit Shemesh among closures • Cases climb past 1,000 in 24 hours
Closures will be imposed on neighborhoods across the country starting Friday afternoon, government ministers decided Thursday night, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted for the first time that Israel had reopened its economy too quickly after the first wave of the virus.
The closures will go into effect in neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Lod, Ramle and Kiryat Malachi starting today at 1 p.m. The closures will be in effect for a week.
On Thursday night, Netanyahu admitted that Israel had opened its economy too quickly after the first wave of the virus.
“Looking back, as part of trial and error, it can be said that this last step was premature,” the prime minister said. “Many urged us to do it, to open up the economy unhindered. This has not stopped these same people from asking us today, ‘Why did you open this way?’”
He said that Israel opened up “because we listened to your hardships and wanted to put as many of you back into the workforce as possible.”
The prime minister then encouraged the public to “wear masks. Studies show that when two people wear masks and stay two meters apart, the chance of getting infected is nil. So, I ask for your cooperation.”
He said, “We are doing everything to avoid a complete closure – it is in our hands.”
The mayors of most of the cities who expected to be closed on Thursday pushed back, trying to get their communities off the list.
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion wrote a heated letter to Deputy Director-General Itamar Grotto of the Health Ministry that was disseminated to the press on Thursday, in which he said that, “My unequivocal stance is against closure. The proposed closure will turn these neighborhoods into hatching grounds for coronavirus.”
He said that unlike in other cities, the residents of Jerusalem live in crowded neighborhoods and the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community specifically has large families in small apartments.
“Their hermetic closure will lead to mass infection within the community and make matters worse,” Leon argued.
He proposed opening “coronavirus hotels” that would be operated by the municipality and the Home Front Command to remove the sick from their homes and prevent further infection. He also recommended, among other things, that yeshiva students who board at their schools should continue to stay there, operating in capsules, so as to not send potentially sick young men back to their families.
“I believe that the issue must be systemic, including taking into account the best options for preventing the spread of infection,” the mayor concluded. “Closure without such solutions will achieve the opposite goal.”
The Health Ministry defined the criteria for naming a restrictive zone: more than 50 infected residents, more than 151.8 infections per 100,000 residents, more than 98.9% increase in the number of active patients in seven days, Israeli media reported.
According to data presented by the Health Ministry on Thursday morning 2,159 were sick in Jerusalem, 234 in Modi’in Illit, 216 in Ramle, 279 in Beit Shemesh, 228 in Lod, 149 in Kiryat Malachi and 828 in Ashdod.
But numbers are up across the country and not just in these cities, Health Ministry data showed.
Some 1,322 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said Thursday.
In total, some 34,825 Israelis have been diagnosed with coronavirus, though there are only 16,025 people who remain infected. The rest have recovered.
The percentage of people who tested positive out of those screened on Wednesday stood at around 4.5% – a number that has remained more or less consistent for the past few weeks. On Wednesday, some 29,271 people were tested.
In total, just more than 8,550 Israelis have been diagnosed with coronavirus in the first nine days of July, compared to 8,395 all last month. Moreover, more than half of Israelis who have been infected with corona were infected in the last 40 days.
Among the sick, 122 people are in serious condition, among them 39 who are intubated. So far, the virus has killed 348 Israelis.
Between midnight and press time on Thursday, some 922 people tested positive.
“I worry that in the coming weeks, we will see the consequences of the past two weeks,” Dr. Uri Galanta, the head of the coronavirus ward at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, said. “Take care so we can keep safe.”
A report by N12 said that the Health Ministry on Thursday ordered all public hospitals to open an area to admit coronavirus patients into the
we can keep safe.”
A report by N12 said that the Health Ministry on Thursday ordered all public hospitals to open an area to admit coronavirus patients into the emergency rooms to ensure they stay separated from non-coronavirus patients.
Also, Defense Minister Benny Gantz issued a special order to recruit 2,000 additional IDF reservists until the end of July who can help work with the Health Ministry to stop the spread of the virus. Until now, around 750 reservists have been called up.
Gantz is also considering a plan to open more coronavirus hotels next week.
At the same time, Interior Minister Arye Deri announced that he has extended the ability for foreign nursing aides to enter Israel with a work permit due to the increase in elderly people in need of private care. The workers must enter isolation for 14 days.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Biological Research announced it will collaborate with Italy’s Careggi University Hospital and Tuscany Life Sciences in the fight against coronavirus.
According to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office, the memorandum of understanding was decided on during a phone conversation between Netanyahu and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. • readily employed and advance the Israeli economy.
Finally, Netanyahu said that people over the age of 67 who were forced to stop working because of the virus will receive NIS 4,000 per month until the year ends to help them adjust, aid that requires Knesset legislation.
The Israeli Employment Service reported Thursday that the unemployment stands at around 21%.
The plan is meant to be approved on Sunday and Israelis are expected to see the money in their bank accounts on Wednesday.
“Because Israel’s economy is solid, world famous, and I am very proud of it,” Netanyahu explained, the country can take loans at a low rate should it need to do so. “This will not solve all issues, but I will be involved at all times to ensure you will get the funds and be able to support yourselves in these hard times.”
Netanyahu blamed Israel’s bureaucracy for previous unsuccessful attempts to help these workers, and said he would make all efforts to ensure this did not challenge the plan this time around.
Ahead of the plan’s unveiling, producer Ronen Maili, who is among the leaders of the 200,000-member group of self-employed Israelis who are unable to operate due to the coronavirus crisis, spoke with Radio 103. He said that he and others like him will take to the streets on Saturday as Netanyahu has been unable to deliver the promised aid so far.
It is unclear if these protests will still take place now that the plan has been shared with the public.
The prime minister also used the platform to call on his coalition partners to agree to pass a “rapid budget” that would last for six months. Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz is asking to pass a more long-term budget that would hold until the end of 2021.
Netanyahu and Gantz agreed, when they entered an emergency unity government to help the nation during this outbreak, that whomever prevents a budget from being passed in Knesset will step down and leave the other to rule until new elections can be held. Interior Minister Arye Deri claimed Netanyahu is pushing for new elections. • in the just over a month since Israelis were allowed back to bars, restaurants, beaches and shops, they were already breaking regulations.
“As the days passed, human nature set in,” wrote Mark Stone. “Masks were routinely round the chin, not the face. Two meters quickly turned into one, then half. And as the weather turned hotter, the beaches became even more crowded.
“At the beginning of this week, Israel [a country of only 8.6 million people] had 450 new cases,” he continued. “By Thursday night it was recording 1,000 new cases – the most it has ever recorded in a single day. The peak now is higher than the first one.”
He then warned his own country: “Beware, the UK is a few weeks behind Israel.”
Germany’s Deutsche Zeitung told how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that world leaders contacted Israel to learn how to handle the coronavirus crisis, but “now Israel has slid back.” The paper called the situation in Israel “severe.”
The French paper Le Figaro wrote similarly that Israel was a “model pupil” in March and that since restrictions were lifted, the country “has turned into a disaster.”
“Managing the crisis well was a strategic asset and we were handling it well in terms of building goodwill towards Israel,” said Joanna Landau, the CEO and founder of Vibe Israel, which had a report conducted for it showing that the Jewish state’s image was seen in a positive light during the first wave of the pandemic. “It’s a shame Israel’s handling of the crisis has deteriorated after how well it started.”
Vibe Israel is a nonprofit organization that, according to its website, aims to strengthen the connection between the next-gen Jewish Diaspora and Israel.
The survey, based on data from research done by Bloom Consulting from March 30-April 2 and utilizing a new type of measurement called Brand-Nought, analyzed how a country was perceived internationally based on its government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. This analysis focused on image impact in four specific areas: whether people would want to visit the country (tourism), whether people would want to work in or live in the country, whether people would want to study in the country and whether people would want to buy products from the country.
When compared to over 140 countries, Israel was found to
have a positive image, especially compared to countries like Italy and the United States.
Landau believes that there were three aspects that contributed to Israel having such a positive image: reacting quickly, keeping quarantine seriously and being one of the countries involved in the race to develop a vaccine.
However, with the situation changing in June and July – and the recent, uncontrollable spike in cases – Landau believes that, “If the study was done again now, we wouldn’t be doing as well.”
In May, restrictions were fully lifted and Israelis were asked to do three things: wear masks, keep distance and maintain good hygiene. Their failure to do so and the government’s delayed reaction has led to the number of daily cases surging past 1,000.
Israel is suffering the consequences of these decisions, Landau said, both in terms of the growing rate of serious patients and also in terms of its image to the world.
“The problem is that it’s very time-limited, as it is entirely dependent on how the government is handling the crisis within the specific time frame the research was conducted – and this particular outbreak is especially volatile, because everything can change in just two weeks,” she said.
But she believes that Israel might have a chance of salvaging its image. But she said doing so depends on its leaders.
“If the government does not manage to fix what is going on now, then it is going to continue to create a lot of negative press. If the government continues squabbling about issues unrelated to coronavirus and it affects its ability to manage the crisis well, then it will not be good for Israel’s image,” she explained.
“If it manages to fix the situation quickly, then there is certainly an argument to be made to say that we were the first country that opened up, saw the situation spiral out of control quickly and closed it back down.
“Someone needs to manage Israel’s image,” Landau concluded.
The Government Press Office declined to comment. •
benefits, or that it would be worthwhile to wait until November to see how the US elections turn out – then the likely way for him to do so would be to just let the issue fade.
No dramatic pronouncement, no security cabinet vote, no high-level meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – just do nothing and let the issue disappear from the radar screen.
In the meantime, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is once again saying that he is willing to negotiate with Israel under the auspices of the Quartet, made up of the US, EU, UN and Russia. He made comments to that effect this week in telephone conversations he held with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
While some may see this as some kind of breakthrough, a goodwill gesture of sorts he is throwing toward Netanyahu if he decides not to go through with any annexation move, it is actually nothing of the kind. Abbas has for years been saying that he is willing to negotiate with Israel under Quartet auspices – there is nothing new here. Not direct negotiations with Israel, but under the watchful eyes of the EU, UN, Russia and the US. Yes, he will agree to US involvement as long as it is diluted by the other parties.
Abbas knows full well that this is not something Israel would agree to, since the Quartet is stacked against it as three of its four members – the EU, Russia and the UN – already have backed what the Palestinians want to see as the outcome of the negotiations: a two-state solution, based on the 1967 lines, with east Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state.
When Jerusalem hears that Abbas wants to reconvene the Quartet and negotiate under its auspices, it doesn’t hear a genuine Palestinian desire to negotiate, but rather an attempt to get the international community to “deliver” Israel. The chances of Netanyahu agreeing to that are equal to the chances of Abbas agreeing to any Israeli annexation. •
period. All will continue working, including Kochavi, the military said.
In April, following a similar incident, Kochavi entered quarantine and later tested negative for the virus.
His quarantine period comes a day after Defense Minister Benny Gantz also entered a two-week quarantine after coming in contact with a family member who was later diagnosed with the virus.
But according to Bader, despite the high number of soldiers in quarantine, the army’s operational capabilities have not been affected because those quarantined continue to carry out their duties secluded from others in their own capsules.
“A soldier who is in quarantine who is still healthy can still function,” he said, adding that confirmed carriers who are sick are removed from the capsule and placed in coronavirus facilities along with civilians who are sick.
Bader explained that the capsule system, which can be anywhere from between 10-50 soldiers, keeps the balance necessary between “minimizing interaction while still allowing the military to function as needed.”
According to Bader, who expected a second wave months ago, Israel is seeing a higher number of incidents, which is why it is even more important to listen to regulations set by the military or government.
“In this second wave, since we are seeing a higher number of incidents, it makes it even more necessary to listen to the regulations,” he told the Post. “We were prepared, but we know that we can do better. I describe it as ‘mistake and punishment.’ If we act well, we will have better results, but if we don’t listen to the regulations, these are the results.”
According to the IDF’s top medical officer, with a higher number of cases across the country – there were 1,231 new infections reported by the Health Ministry on Thursday morning alone – “there is a higher chance that someone will meet someone carrying the virus.”
He explained that the IDF’s Medical Corps is working hand-in-hand with the Health Ministry and Home Front Command, as well as Magen David Adom rescue services during the epidemic.
“We are doing as much as we can, for us and for the civilians, because at the end of the day, it is a war we are all fighting and we need to fight together to win,” he said, explaining that as long there is no vaccine, the world will have to continue to fight against the deadly virus.
Bader said that despite the close spaces in the military, most of the infections in the army don’t necessarily come from within the army, “but of course, if there is one sick soldier, there is a higher chance that he will infect others and that’s why we work in capsules, which will minimize interactions.”
Despite the increase in cases, the IDF has not kept soldiers on bases like it did during the first wave. Instead, it has limited furloughs for combat soldiers to once every 21 days and placed restrictions on troops who are allowed home.
While there are cases where service members can’t prevent coming into contact with an asymptomatic coronavirus carrier, there are others where troops can take the proper precautions,
such as keeping distance and wearing a mask, to decrease the chance of catching the virus.
“If a soldier goes to a party or rides on a bus where there could be an infected individual, he is a risk,” Bader said, adding that it is important to explain to soldiers how essential it is to listen to the regulations.
“At the end of the day, these are the soldiers and officers who are guarding our borders,” he said. “Officers need to understand that they have to set a personal example and troops need to understand that they can’t risk their friends by going to the beach or to parties. Everyone wants to do that, but right now, we need to have minimum interaction in order to keep the population and country safe.” •