Health Minister Yuli Edelstein has insisted that the impending lockdown is vital as well as justified - it will come into effect tomorrow at two o'clock in the afternoon.
"Once we're out of this situation, there'll be plenty of time to make a reckoning of what was done and what could have been done better," he said. "Right now, we're at war. I am being deluged with questions regarding why we are permitting communal prayer at all - all I can say is that it's because this is something that affects not just the religious and the haredim, but also the majority of the Israeli public on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur."
Edelstein then called for "each person to show responsibility, and stop asking why protests are permitted or prayers are permitted - instead, each person should ask himself what he can personally do to make sure that the regulations succeed in their objective."