Israeli Occupation closes its borders to all foreigners

Palestine

Published: 2021-11-28 10:27

Last Updated: 2024-03-28 09:56


Israeli Occupation closes its borders to all foreigners
Israeli Occupation closes its borders to all foreigners

The government of the Israeli Occupation announced that it will ban all foreigners from entering the country, becoming the first country to completely close its borders in an effort to combat the spread of the new strain, Omicron.

According to the statement, it will reintroduce counter-terrorism phone-tracking in order to contain the spread of this variant, which was first discovered in South Africa.

The Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, said in a statement that the ban will last 14 days, pending government approval.

Officials hope that more information will be available during that period regarding the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against Omicron, which the World Health Organization described as a ‘variant of concern.’

“Our working hypotheses are that the strain is already present in almost every country and that the vaccine is effective, although we do not yet know to what extent,” Interior Minister, Ayelet Shaked, told N12.

Bennett said that citizens entering the country, including those who have been vaccinated, will be quarantined, and the ban will go into effect at midnight on Sunday.

Earlier on Friday, a ban was imposed on the entry of foreigners from most African countries.

The statement said that the phone tracking technology of the Internal Security Agency (Shin Bet) will be used to locate carriers of the new strain of the virus in order to limit its transmission to others.

Although it has been used intermittently since March 2020, Israeli Occupation's Supreme Court limited the scope of its use after civil rights groups filed appeals over privacy concerns.

The new strain has also been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany and Britain and has sparked global concern and a wave of travel restrictions, although experts say it may already be too late to impose such restrictions to prevent Omicron from spreading globally.

The Israeli Occupation confirmed the registration of one case of the Omicron strain and seven suspected cases.

The Ministry of Health did not say if the confirmed case had been vaccinated.