Palestinians & Israeli Affairs

BNEI BRAK, Israel - Israeli police threw up metal barricades and roadblocks on Friday to enforce a lockdown of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish town badly affected by coronavirus. Emergency regulations approved by the cabinet late Thursday declared Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, a “restricted zone” due to its high rate of infections.

TEL AVIV - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tested negative for coronavirus on Thursday after his health minister was diagnosed with it, officials said, the 70-year-old leader’s second infection scare this week. As a precaution, Netanyahu returned to self-isolation for six more days, they said. On Wednesday, he completed a quarantine

JERUSALEM - A rising death toll in the coronavirus crisis is forcing a change in Jewish and Muslim burial and mourning traditions in the Holy Land. In Israel, Jewish dead are normally laid to rest in a cloth smock and shroud, without a coffin. Now, the bodies of coronavirus victims are

TEL AVIV - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is returning to self-isolation for another six days after his health minister was diagnosed with coronavirus, the premier’s office said on Thursday. Netanyahu, 70, the nation’s longest-serving leader, had just ended a two-day period of isolation on Wednesday night after a parliamentary aide

All Israelis must wear face-masks while in public as a precaution against the coronavirus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday. "We ask you, citizens of Israel, all of you, to wear masks in the public sphere," Netanyahu said in a televised speech, adding that people could improvise in the absence