Israelis will no longer be able to travel to areas of high coronavirus infection, the government voted shortly before Shabbat on Friday.
The forbidden countries include Ukraine, Ethiopia, Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico and Turkey.
Israelis will not be allowed to travel to them except in extreme circumstances, as determined by an exceptions committee that will be headed by employees of the Population Authority and Health Ministry.Israelis who return from these countries, whether they are vaccinated or not, will be required to enter quarantine.
The ban does not include layovers of 12 hours or less.Also, non-citizens will be able to travel to these countries if they are leaving Israel and planning to take up residency outside the Jewish state.
The ban goes into place on Monday and is expected to hold through May 16.
The vote came four days after the Health Ministry sent a recommendation to cease travel to and from these countries due both to a high level of coronavirus and because there are variants in these countries that could be resistant to the Pfizer vaccines - although how resistant is still unknown.
Ukraine is averaging around 11,000 new cases per day; Ethiopia 1,000; Brazil 77,000; South Africa 1,000; India 222,000; Mexico nearly 4,000 and Turkey 38,000. The Indian, Brazilian, Californian and South African variants in these countries have raised concerns that they may be able to break through the Pfizer vaccine.
“The airport entrance, even for the vaccinated, can be a port for mutations, for variants, which is deadly dangerous,” Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy told The Jerusalem Post. “You cannot have people go in and out and have no barrier, no gatekeeper from the world.”
Israel has to prevent variants that could cause coronavirus to spread across the country again, he said, adding: “We are really nervous that the opening of the skies could bring us back to where we started.”