The Health Ministry on Friday signed an order requiring all Israelis returning from international travel to enter into immediate quarantine upon their arrival in the Jewish state.
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The decision effectively abandons Israel's system of assessing the coronavirus risk of international destinations, with "green" being completely safe and requiring no quarantine period, to "red" where travel is strictly forbidden.
Israelis returning from abroad, regardless of the country, will now have to observe a mandatory self-isolation period of 14 days.
The measure comes after thousands of Israelis returned from international trips to Dubai over the Hanukkah holiday period, with the United Arab Emirates maintaining a "green" country accreditation, despite the Gulf nation seeing a dramatic spike in COVID-19 cases.
The new measure will take effect on Dec. 26, Channel 12 News reported, which also revealed that some cabinet members were not informed of the decision and may seek to have it overturned.
Israel put the UAE on a list of "green" destinations in August, with some suggesting the decision was motivated more by politics rather than health concerns since Jerusalem at the time was just weeks away from signing a historic normalization deal with Abu Dhabi.
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Dubai's exemption has resulted in congestion at airports and raised fears that on their return travelers will spread the coronavirus in the country, like tourists returning from Turkey in October.
More than 50,000 Israelis have visited the United Arab Emirates since Israel signed the Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain in September, according to a report released on Monday.
On Sunday, following the emergence of a new variant of the novel coronavirus in the UK, the Health Ministry announced that it would recommend that people from South Africa, Denmark and England not be allowed to enter Israel.
In addition, Israel's coronavirus cabinet will recommend that people coming into the country from Australia and New Zealand stay in quarantine in a coronavirus hotel upon their return.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
