PM Netanyahu
PM NetanyahuOlivier Fitoussi/Flash90

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday ordered a halt to all flights arriving in Israel, after the passengers on yet another "rescue" flight were not taken to a "coronavirus hotel."

The order will remain in place until a legal agreement is reached to allow the Home Front Command to evacuate the arrivals to a coronavirus hotel.

Planes which have already taken off will be allowed to land, but no further arrivals will be permitted.

The order comes after N12 exposed the fact that the arrivals were not screened and that they may be responsible for the recent rise in coronavirus cases. Passengers from New York arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport on Saturday morning were allowed to leave the airport freely.

According to statistics from the National Information Center for Information on Coronavirus, one week ago, on April 4, the number of coronavirus cases which were sourced in Israelis who had traveled abroad stood at 16. Five days later, on April 9, the number of cases sourced in Israelis who had traveled abroad had jumped to 90. A significant portion of those cases seems to be travelers arriving from New York, who were allowed into the country without being properly tracked or placed in coronavirus hotels.