Non-citizens will be barred from traveling to Israel for 2 weeks as the country monitors Omicron variant

Travelers seen at the Ben Gurion International Airport, Nov. 28, 2021. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
(JTA) — Israel will bar all non-Israelis from entering the country for at least two weeks due to concern about the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The travel ban begins Sunday night at midnight.
The announcement was issued Saturday night, one day after the country banned visitors from several African countries due to fear of the Omicron variant, which was first detected in South Africa. The new rule comes less than a month after the country reopened to foreign tourists for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.
“We are currently on the verge of a state of emergency,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Friday. The first case of the new variant was found in Israel Nov. 25.
The new variant includes more mutations than were seen in past variants of the coronavirus and seems to be spreading quickly across South Africa. It is not yet known whether the variant is more lethal than past iterations of the virus, but public health officials are concerned that it may be more contagious and possibly better at evading the body’s immune response.
Beginning Sunday night at midnight, the rules regarding quarantine for Israelis returning from abroad will become stricter.
Vaccinated Israels returning from abroad who until now were only required to quarantine until receiving a negative COVID test in Israel will now have to test once upon landing, quarantine for 72 hours, and take another test on the third day after they arrive. Unvaccinated Israelis returning from abroad will have to quarantine for at least one week and may exit quarantine if they receive a negative test on the first and seventh days of their quarantine. Those who do not submit to a test on the seventh day will have to complete a full 14-day quarantine.
—
The post Non-citizens will be barred from traveling to Israel for 2 weeks as the country monitors Omicron variant appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion I co-wrote Biden’s antisemitism strategy. Trump is making the threat worse
-
Fast Forward From ‘October 8’ to ‘The Encampments,’ these new documentaries illuminate the post-Oct. 7 American experience
-
Fast Forward Jews at Tufts are furious over ICE seizing a pro-Palestinian grad student. But they’re wary of joining protests for her.
-
Film & TV How Marlene Dietrich saved me — or maybe my twin sister — and helped inspire me to become a lifelong activist
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.