Israel has extended a national lockdown as coronavirus variants offset its vaccination drive and officials predict a delay in a turnaround from the health and economic crisis.
Highlighting Israel’s challenges in enforcing restrictions, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews attended the Jerusalem funerals of two prominent rabbis on Sunday, drawing criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners.
Netanyahu has promoted a speedy vaccination of Israel’s most vulnerable cohorts – around 24 per cent of 9 million citizens – and the lockdown as dual pathways to a possible reopening of the economy in February.
But a projected mid-January turnaround in curbing the pandemic did not transpire.
Serious cases have surged among Israelis who have not yet been vaccinated. Officials blame that on communicable foreign virus strains and on lockdown scofflaws.
Netanyahu’s cabinet voted to extend the five-week-old lockdown until Friday, with a separate ban on international flights to remain in place until Sunday, his office said in a statement.
Parliament earlier voted to double fines for lockdown violators to 10,000 shekels ($A4000).
Violations by ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are among the conservative Netanyahu’s supporters, have been played up by political rivals in questioning the lockdown’s efficacy – and building opposition to him ahead of a March 23 election.
“Either everyone is locked down, or everything is opened up for everyone. The days of chicanery are over,” Defence Minister Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s centrist coalition partner and now election competitor, wrote on Twitter.
Read the article by Dan Williams in The West Australian (AAP) and Bendigo Advertiser.