Israel to set new curbs as virus stubbornly soars
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday announced a new countrywide lockdown will be imposed amid a stubborn surge in coronavirus cases, with schools and parts of the economy expected to shut down in a bid to bring down infection rates.
Beginning Friday — the start of the Jewish High Holiday season — schools, restaurants, malls and hotels will shut down, among other businesses, and Israelis will face restrictions on movement and on gatherings.
“Our goal is to stop the increase [ in cases] and lower morbidity,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a nationally broadcast statement. “I know that these steps come at a difficult price for all of us. This is not the holiday we are used to.”
The tightening of measures marks the second time Israel is being plunged into a lockdown after a lengthy shutdown in the spring. That lockdown is credited with having brought down what were much lower infection numbers, but it wreaked havoc on the country’s economy and sent unemployment skyrocketing.
The lockdown will remain in place for at least three weeks, at which point officials may relax measures if case numbers decline. Israelis typically hold large family gatherings and pack synagogues during the important fast of Yom Kippur later this month — settings that officials fear could trigger new outbreaks.
A sticking point in government deliberations over the lockdown was what prayers would look like during the holidays. While the details on prayer during the lockdown were not nailed down in the government decision, strict limits on the faithful were expected. That prompted Israeli Housing
Minister Yaakov Litzman, who represents ultra- Orthodox Jews, to resign from the government earlier Sunday.
Israel has had more than 150,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 1,100 deaths. Given its population of 9 million, the country now has one of the world’s worst outbreaks. It is now seeing more than 4,000 new daily cases of the virus.
Israel earned praise for its initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak, moving quickly to seal the country’s borders and appearing to bring infections under control. But it has since been criticized for opening businesses and schools too quickly and allowing the virus to spread unchecked.
Much of that criticism has been aimed at Mr. Netanyahu, who has faced a public outcry over his handling of the crisis and has seen thousands of protesters descend on his Jerusalem residence every week.