Israel on Sunday is set to impose its third nationwide lockdown since the start of the pandemic, with police deploying some 6,000 officers to enforce it. The closure aimed at tackling the COVID-19 resurgence will begin at 5 pm local time and last for at least two weeks, though health officials have indicated it would likely be extended to a month.
The lockdown comes as coronavirus cases have climbed steeply upward, surpassing 3,000 a day, and amid fears that a British mutation of the disease could be spreading across Israel.
The Health Ministry reported on Saturday evening that 3,994 people had been diagnosed with the contagion on Friday and another 1,439 by Saturday afternoon, pushing the total number of active cases up to 34,996. The test positivity rate stood at 4.7 percent as of Friday, one of the higher rates seen in recent weeks.
As Israelis brace themselves for a third coronavirus lockdown Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that his goal is to reach a vaccination rate of around 150,000 people a day within a week, and inoculate over 2 million Israelis by the end of January. That would amount to over a quarter of Israel’s population of 9.25 million people.
Local media has reported that some 266,000 people had gotten the first of two shots by the end of the first week of Israel’s vaccination drive.
Israel currently ranks second globally in vaccinations per capita, after Bahrain, according to the University of Oxford-run Our World in Data.
Morocco’s Foreign Ministry has denied local media reports that a normalization delegation was set arrive in the Jewish state on Sunday, insisting that it was only a logistics team with no diplomatic authority.
Late last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel and Morocco would be conducting diplomatic talks in the coming days in order to launch direct flights between the two countries and establish embassies. On Friday, Netanyahu spoke on the phone with King Mohammed VI for the first time since Israel and Morocco agreed to establish diplomatic relations earlier this month.
During the “warm and friendly” conversation, the Israeli leader extended an invitation to Morocco’s monarch to make an official visit to the Jewish state in the coming months. The two agreed to continue contacts in order to advance the normalization agreement in the weeks ahead.
Quoting a line from the Hollywood classic movie Casablanca, Netanyahu added: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
The North African country is the fourth nation to normalize ties with Israel this year, following the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
In response to IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman’s comment on Friday to the Saudi Arabian Elaph news outlet that Israel was tracking Iranian movements around the region, and that Israeli submarines were quietly “sailing everywhere,” the top naval commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that Tehran was ready to defend itself and was prepared for any scenario.
“Forces, systems and equipment are at the desired level of readiness to defend the water borders, the interests and security of our country,” said IRGC Navy Commander Admiral Alireza Tangsiri. In addition, an unnamed Iranian official told Al Jazeera on Saturday that “Tehran’s response to any attack on national security will be strong and wide.”
Zilberman gave the interview after an Israeli submarine had reportedly openly crossed the Suez Canal last week in a show of force directed at Iran. The move was allegedly approved by Egypt. The submarine surfaced and faced the Persian Gulf, which lies on the other side of Saudi Arabia. The intelligence sources said the move was meant to “send a message” to Tehran.
Iran has threatened to attack Israel since the assassination of its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in late November, in a raid blamed on the Jewish state.
Turkey would like better ties with Israel but the Jewish state’s policy vis a vis the Palestinians remains “unacceptable,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. The two countries, once allies, have had a bitter falling out in recent years. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Jerusalem’s policies in the West Bank. It has also criticized recent US-brokered rapprochements between Israel and four Muslim countries.
Despite Erdogan’s stated stance on the Palestinians issue, however, Ankara recently appointed a new ambassador to Israel after a two-year absence, and is also looking to forge a maritime border pact with the Jewish State. This move has been viewed as part of Turkey’s attempt to improve ties with the incoming administration of US president-elect Joe Biden.
On Dec. 14, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey over its acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. US officials have voiced opposition to the deal, claiming the S-400s would be incompatible with NATO systems and expose F-35 jets to possible Russian subterfuge.
Israel has not responded publicly to Erdogan’s overtures.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates are reportedly working together to eliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) before addressing the issue of Palestinian refugees. This collaboration has allegedly been underway since Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi announced that they would be normalizing relations in August.
Emirati officials are reportedly considering an action plan intended to gradually eliminate UNRWA, without making this conditional on a resolution of the refugee problem. This development comes despite the fact that the UAE has been a major source of funding to UNRWA in 2018 and 2019, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
By collaborating with Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi would be rallying to a long-standing demand from the Jewish state, which has insisted for years that UNRWA is in reality obstructing peace.
While the main UN agency dealing with refugees, UNHCR, concentrates on resettling them by facilitating their voluntary repatriation or local integration and resettlement, UNRWA uniquely maintains millions of people as refugees decade after decade. With their descendants inheriting refugee status, a controversial quirk not shared by any other refugee population, the UN thus considers the Palestinians to be the only refugee population in the world that increases, rather than decreases, over time.
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