Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday participated in a cabinet meeting focusing on the rise in coronavirus infections.
"I would first of all like to discuss the serious incident of a government meeting being recorded and then played on the media," Netanyahu said. "In all my years as prime minister, I don't remember such a thing ever having been done. Not from within a government meeting and not from within the cabinet. In this case [it was] the coronavirus cabinet, and a discussion with the head of Shabak (Israel Security Agency), is an extremely serious thing."
"This is something that we cannot ignore. I request that all the parties, including the Attorney General, allow a thorough investigation. We cannot allow this to become common. We cannot allow this to happen again."
Turning the topic to the coronavirus outbreak, Netanyahu said: "In addition, we are facing a consistent rise in infections. We see this not just here, but unfortunately also around the world."
"The ways to act that we will discuss are: a dramatic increase in enforcement, which includes increasing fine; a central office for enforcement, under the Public Security Ministry; and harnessing all of our forces and additional forces for the purpose of supervision and enforcement.
"The second thing is the use of digital tools. We know that this is a problematic issue, but on the other hand we also know that it did a lot for us in terms of controlling the plague. We will look at how we can overcome the difficulties in order to reduce the infection rates.
"The third thing is local shutdowns, which are a toll that we are already forced to use in order to prevent widescale general lockdowns."
Netanyahu added that "the fourth thing is connected to limiting gatherings - and it's a very harsh step. I suggest that we weigh it, and we see if we need it and when we will need it. It obviously has consequences for certain activities that we have approved. We will see if we need them."