Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned Tuesday that Israel is on the verge of a massive and ‘unprecedented’ wave of new coronavirus outbreaks, due to the spread of the new Omicron variant.
Speaking with Kan Bet Tuesday morning, the Israeli premier urged against complacency, saying a fifth wave of the coronavirus, fueled by the Omicron variant, could be dangerous.
“We are just a moment before a storm of infections on an unprecedented scale in Israel. There is an inclination right now to feel like we’re at the end – but that’s not the situation. It is still dangerous.”
Bennett pointed to high infection rates of the Omicron variant in the US and UK.
“Right now in London, New York, and other places around the world, there is a significant rise in the number of hospitalizations, including the hospitalizations of children. So I really ask and expect parents who, just as they protected themselves, will protect their kids. The vaccines are safe: millions of children in America have already gotten the second dose, it’s safe and it works.”
“The decision I made to close Israel to air travel by foreign nationals bought us four weeks the rest of the world didn’t get; maybe five.”
“While Europe is now at the peak of the new wave and lockdowns, with the Netherlands in full lockdown, along with Austria, we’re still on the verge of the wave, and that’s given us the advantage of being able to purchase medicine. It wasn’t a simple process at all, to put it mildly.”
The number of new cases of COVID have spiked in the US and UK, though COVID-related fatalities have remained largely flat.
While the number of patients admitted to UK hospitals surged in December, analysis of NHS data has shown that 65% of the new patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 were actually admitted for ailments other than COVID, and only tested positive after being hospitalized.
Prime Minister Bennett also discussed the future of the yeshiva in Homesh, the former Israeli town in northern Samaria which was demolished as part of the 2005 Disengagement Plan.
Last week, Israel evacuated a number of makeshift homes built in Homesh, a week after a deadly terrorist attack near Homesh that left one student from the yeshiva, 25-year-old Yehuda Dimantman, dead.
Despite the partial demolition of Homesh, in his interview Tuesday, Bennett vowed to leave the yeshiva intact, while pushing back on criticism from right-wing lawmakers in the Opposition.
“The yeshiva was evacuated a number of times over the years, and if I remember correctly the last time it was evacuated by the Netanyahu-Smotrich government, when I was in the Opposition. I don’t remember Smotrich making a big deal of it then. But now, the yeshiva will not be evacuated.”