The recriminations from a statement by Interior Minister Eli Yishai over the weekend about how illegal foreign workers would bring disease and drugs into Israel continued Sunday afternoon, as Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovich denied that Yishai was quoting him when the Interior Minister made the statement on Channel Two news.

In a statement, Aharonovich said that he had not said that illegal foreign workers entering Israel en masse would bring diseases, but that there had been isolated cases of sick foreign workers entering the country in the past.