The new restrictions are set to begin Friday, coinciding with the start of a month of Jewish holy festivals.
JERUSALEM — Israel will head into a second coronavirus lockdown, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a televised news conference Sunday night, following a sharp escalation in the number of new covid-19 infections in the country in recent weeks.
Data published by the Health Ministry on Sunday showed that since the start of the crisis, 153,759 people in Israel have caught the virus, with 114,635 recovering, 38,008 cases active and 1,108 dead.“Our economy is still in good shape,” Netanyahu assured the public Sunday, pointing out that Israel’s rising numbers mirrored what was happening in many other countries and reflected the challenge of reopening society and the economy after the first lockdown in March and April.
“We are preparing in advance, closing down, so we can get out ahead of the virus,” said Netanyahu, who was due to leave the country shortly after the news conference for a peace summit with Arab leaders and President Trump in Washington. Details about how the new restrictions will affect places of worship have yet to be approved, but he warned: “It will be a different kind of holiday this year. We will not be able to celebrate like we usually do with our families.
Some members of the ultra-Orthodox community have also threatened to ignore the lockdown if it restricts their ability to worship over the High Holy Days — Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. On Sunday, as the government debated the impending measures, Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman, who is ultra-Orthodox, announced his resignation from the government because of the expected restrictions on communal prayer.In a letter to Netanyahu, he decried the fact that the lockdown would prevent worshipers, including tens of thousands of Jews who don’t usually attend synagogue, from joining prayers in the most important and well-attended Jewish services of the year.
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