Israeli aviation and tourism officials in various government ministries accused the Health Ministry on Sunday of dragging its feet over opening the country's skies to tourists from countries with low coronavirus morbidity rates.
The Foreign Ministry recently agreed in principle with several countries to possibly allow tourists to enter Israel without the need to self-isolate, but the agreement depends on approval from the Health Ministry, which is still undecided on the matter.
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Senior Health Ministry officials were slated to convene on Monday to discuss the matter with senior aviation officials and make a final decision. The meeting comes in the wake of Friday's two-hour worker strike at Ben-Gurion International Airport.
Israel Airports Authority workers committee chairman Pinhas Idan warned that if the sides fail to reach understandings, IAA employees will impose harsher work stoppages.
As of today, the countries interested in signing the tourism exchange deal with Israel are Georgia, Cyprus, Greece, Seychelles, Slovenia, Malta, Croatia, Lithuania and Montenegro.
The Health Ministry said in a statement: "The article is full of baseless claims, based on fragments of information from parties with vested interests. The health minister (Yuli Edelstein) doesn't need moral preaching from anyone about the need to open up the economy. He has done this over the past two weeks more than any interested party. The minister is doing everything in a balanced and responsible fashion."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at Sunday's cabinet meeting, addressed the morbidity spike in recent days.
"Parts of the clear increase [in infections] we are seeing these past eight days -- some of it stems from the restrictions we lifted for the propose of opening the economy. But part of it also clearly stems from people not following safety instructions as well as before, such as masks, distance and hygiene," he said.
Consequently, the so-called "corona cabinet" will also convene on Monday to discuss a number of issues.
Health Ministry officials on Sunday reported 111 new confirmed cases. For the first time in five weeks, meanwhile, there has been an increase in the number of patients on ventilators -- from 21 to 23.. The overall number of deaths in Israel due to the coronavirus now stands at 298 after two more people died from the disease over the weekend.
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As of Sunday the number of infected students was 277 and the number of sick teachers was 75. Altogether 78 schools have closed their doors, out of around 5,000 schools throughout the country. The number of students in quarantine is 15,489 and the number of teachers in quarantine is 2,107.
Education Minister Yoav Gallant said the ministry's safety policies would remain unchanged, meaning that any school with a confirmed case of the coronavirus will be shut down.
