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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu green-lighted a general plan to ease restrictions on economic activity and “stay home” orders, potentially allowing some businesses to open as soon as next week.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office described the plan, which still must be approved by the full cabinet, as “responsible, cautious and gradual” and said it would allow for a limited opening of businesses.

No specific timeline for the plan was detailed, but according to Hebrew media reports some businesses could reopen as early as next week.

According to Netanyahu’s office, the Finance Ministry will draw up a “pilot plan” for some sectors of the economy to open in accordance with Health Ministry social distancing guidelines. Criteria will be drawn up for certification that will allow businesses to open.

Among the criteria likely to be included are regular disinfecting, taking customers’ temperatures and abiding by social distancing regulations, according to reports.

The industries and businesses that would be allowed to take part in the pilot would be decided on in the next two days, but malls, open-air markets and businesses that involve physical contact will not yet be allowed to reopen.

Israelis in the central city of Lod outside a pharmacy on April 12, 2020. ( Yossi Aloni/Flash90)

The statement also said that restrictions on movement will be slightly eased, with Israelis allowed to exercise in pairs up to 500 meters from their homes, up from the 100 meter limit currently in place.

Special education would also be allowed to resume but preschools and schools will not yet reopen.

A final decision will be brought for cabinet approval Saturday evening,

“Changes are likely during the deliberations over the next days,” the statement said.

A Israelis wearing face masks walk with eggs on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem on April 16, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Quoting sources close to Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, Hebrew media reports said numerous industries would be allowed to resume operations Sunday, though there was no confirmation of this in the statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Almost all factories will be allowed to resume work under the plan, according to Channel 12 news.

There was no indication from the statement that restrictions banning group prayer would be eased, despite a push by ultra-Orthodox ministers for more freedom for religious gatherings.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who heads the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, urged the government to permit prayer gatherings of 10-15 people, provided the services are held outdoors and the worshipers stand apart in accordance with social distancing rules.

A man prays on a balcony in the northern city of Safed on April 13, 2020. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Israeli officials have been mulling in recent days how to begin to roll back some restrictions in response to figures which appear to indicate that the spread of the coronavirus has been halted or slowed in most communities.

As of Thursday evening, there have been 12,758 confirmed coronavirus cases in Israel, with 143 deaths. New daily cases have remained steady at 300-450 per 24-hour period, and serious cases and those on ventilators have not risen significantly for at least a week, according to Health Ministry figures.

Netanyahu met Thursday with ministers and top officials for the first discussion of a strategy to ease the coronavirus restrictions and revive the economy, with officials from the health and finance ministries clashing over the proper approach.

Soldiers patrol in downtown Jerusalem to enforce the Passover curfew, April 09, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

While the Health Ministry has recommended a particularly slow and cautious strategy that would see businesses stay closed for at least another month, the Finance Ministry is demanding that restriction begin being eased as early as possible.

Most experts believe any gradual reopening of economic activity will involve a process of trial and error that may necessitate some restrictions being reimposed.

Border police officers block a main road following the government’s measures to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, in Bnei Brak, April 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty,)

Earlier in the day, the ministerial committee formulating Israel’s response to the coronavirus outbreak approved a decision to relax lockdown restrictions in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, while extending closure rules in Jerusalem neighborhoods until April 19.

The ultra-Orthodox town of 200,000 near Tel Aviv has the second highest infection numbers in the country — 2,150 as of Thursday morning. Jerusalem leads with 2,418 cases.

Two weeks ago Bnei Brak was placed under a strict lockdown, with residents only allowed to leave municipal boundaries to work in key industries or to receive medical care. Some two dozen Jerusalem neighborhoods were put under lockdown on Sunday, most of them ultra-Orthodox.

For the second time in a week, Israel was under a complete lockdown as authorities sought to prevent people taking part in celebrations for the end of the Passover holiday and the Mimouna festival, fearing gatherings could cause a spike in conronaviris infections.

From Tuesday at 5 p.m. until Thursday at 5 a.m., Israelis will be barred from leaving their hometowns, or in the case of Jerusalem, the neighborhoods in which they live, according to the restrictions.

Some 9,000 police and Border Police will enforce the lockdown and 44 roadblocks will be set up on intercity roads. The focus of the police effort was expected to begin Wednesday evening for the start of Mimouna, a North African holiday, that normally sees people hosting large gatherings and traveling from home to home.

Bakeries and restaurants will remain closed until Thursday morning at 2 a.m., though supermarkets will be permitted to operate from Wednesday evening and food deliveries are permitted. This was to prevent crowds from gathering after Passover ends to purchase breads and other “unleavened” goods that many traditionally refrain from consuming during the holiday.

Public transportation has been canceled until Thursday at 5 a.m.

The rules do not apply to Arab communities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara attend the Jewish Moroccan celebration of Mimouna, in Hadera on April 17, 2017. (Ido Erez/POOL)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night directed Israelis to celebrate the last night of Passover and Mimouna only with those they live with, as was the case for the first night of the holiday last week.

Netanyahu said the government was working on a plan to gradually lift restrictions on economic and educational activities and would decide on steps later this week, while stressing that these would be “slow and responsible.”

“I say to you from here: We’ll go out to a different reality from the one we knew before the global crisis,” he said.

He warned that even if the outbreak is contained, there is no way to prevent the virus from returning until a vaccine is developed.

“Only when a coronavirus vaccine is found will we be able to move on to the world of tomorrow, which will be like the world of yesterday,” he said. “But this is not the situation at the moment; therefore, everything will continue to be managed responsibly in order to protect the most precious thing we have – life itself.”

Israeli Police officers at a temporary checkpoint in Jerusalem on April 14, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The new lockdown announced by Netanyahu came after he held consultations with ministers earlier in the day, with the Health Ministry reportedly concerned that the festive atmosphere during the last day of Passover and Mimouna would lead to a slackening of social distancing that has been a central plank in the country’s strategy for curbing the virus spread.

Israel is already under partial lockdown orders requiring all citizens to remain within 100 meters of their homes unless attending essential industries and jobs. Schools, leisure sites and most stores have been shuttered. The public has been ordered to only leave home for essential needs and all public gatherings have been banned. Intercity travel is generally permitted, provided the requirements for travel are met.

However, additional lockdown orders were applied Sunday to several Jerusalem neighborhoods with high coronavirus infection rates, with around 100 checkpoints set up around the capital to prevent travel to and from the restricted zones.

As of Tuesday evening, 119 people have died in Israel of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The Health Ministry updated Israel’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 11,868, including 136 people on ventilators.

Israelis are required to wear faces masks when venturing outside in accordance with a new Health Ministry directive that came into effect on Sunday morning. The measure was approved by the government this past week.

Under the new rules, masks must be worn when leaving home and should cover the nose and the mouth. This does not apply to children under age 6; people with emotional, mental or medical conditions that would prevent them from wearing a mask; drivers in their cars; people alone in a building; and two workers who work regularly together, provided they maintain social distancing.

The masks can be homemade, makeshift, or bought, according to the authorities. The order had previously been issued as a recommendation.

“A face mask greatly reduces the likelihood of being infected and infecting others,” the ministry said, adding that it obstructed respiratory droplets.

Israelis are allowed outdoors under certain conditions, such as to buy food and medicine.

The Health Ministry sent out a reminder on Saturday about the new regulation and aired an infomercial during the nightly news about the benefits of wearing a face mask including instructions on how to fashion one using a bandana and hair ties.

The face mask order came as the World Health Organization (WHO) questioned the effectiveness of such a policy.

The WHO released updated guidelines Tuesday on face masks, saying there was “limited evidence” suggesting a mask worn by a person with the coronavirus would protect those around them, and “no evidence” it was effective for those who are healthy.

Moreover, it warned people to reserve medical masks for health care professionals and cautioned of a false sense of security by mask-wearers.

It added: “The use of masks made of other materials (e.g., cotton fabric), also known as nonmedical masks, in the community setting has not been well evaluated. There is no current evidence to make a recommendation for or against their use in this setting.”

Data released by the Health Ministry showed that a slight majority of Israel’s coronavirus fatalities were men, a statistic that appears in line with a global trend, and the city that saw the highest death rate was Jerusalem.

The Health Ministry figures are Israel’s official tally and only include deaths in hospitals or assisted living facilities. It is unknown whether there have been fatalities in private homes or other locations. As of Sunday, the ministry said 103 people have died of the virus.

According to the Health Ministry figures released Saturday, which are based on 96 fatalities and were collated last week, 51 men died in Israel from COVID-19, compared with 45 women. This appears to tally with statistics from Asia and Europe, where a slightly higher proportion of fatalities were male.

Globally, men are statistically more likely to smoke, which is thought to possibly play a role in susceptibility to COVID-19, and men are also more likely to have underlying problems that could act as a contributing factor, such as heart disease. In addition, there are some studies that suggest hormones may play a role in the severity of the disease.

Israel’s oldest victim was 98 years old and the youngest was 37 years old. The majority of those who died were over the age of 70, according to the figures.  Almost all of those who have died from COVID-19 in Israel have suffered from preexisting conditions, according to hospital officials.

The city that has seen the largest number of fatalities among its residents is Jerusalem — 22 people who lived in the capital have died as a result of COVID-19, according to the Health Ministry, almost a quarter of all deaths. Jerusalem is also the largest city in the country.

Eleven people from the southern city of Beersheba have died as a result of the virus, according to the calculations made last week, a number that reflects the outbreak at the city’s Mishan assisted living facility, which is now reportedly at the center of a police probe into alleged negligence.

The novel coronavirus has been spreading quickly in nursing homes around the country, raising intense concern for the safety of elderly residents.

The ministry on Sunday released figures on infection rates within cities that revealed that the predominantly ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak has the highest concentration of virus cases, with 925 infections diagnosed per every 100,000 people. The Tel Aviv suburb has been closed off from the rest of the country but on Friday restrictions were eased somewhat, with residents allowed to travel outside the city for work and some other essential needs.

The second highest rate is in the ultra-Orthodox town of Kiryat Ye’arim, which has 683 cases per 100,000. Jerusalem has a relatively low overall rate of 214 cases per 100,000 people, but previous statistics have shown that the proportion is much higher in certain neighborhoods than others within the capital.

Several Jerusalem neighborhoods with high coronavirus infection rates will be locked down starting Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. The order to close off parts of the capital was approved by the government following a late-night cabinet meeting and days of discussion on how to contain the spread of the virus in the capital.

The Health Ministry on Sunday morning said two people died of COVID-19 overnight, taking Israel’s death toll to 103. According to Health Ministry figures Sunday morning, Israel has 10,878 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 174 in serious condition and 123 people on ventilators. Another 155 people were in moderate condition, the ministry said, with the rest having mild symptoms.

Israeli health officials are expecting a surge in coronavirus deaths in the next 10 days, according to a Friday report. The rise in deaths does not signify an increase in infections, however. Patients who are already hospitalized and on ventilators are likely to succumb to the virus in the coming days, according to predictive models from the Health Ministry, Channel 13 reported. Experts have pointed to the relatively slow rise in the number of patients on ventilators as a source of potential encouragement, and also note the relatively slow rise in the number of new cases.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday halted all flights to Israel until legal steps could be taken to allow the Home Front Command to transfer all travelers arriving in Israel to a quarantine hotel for 14 days.

Flights that are already en route to Israel will be allowed to land but no new flights will be permitted until the situation is resolved, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The move came after passengers on a flight from the virus-stricken New York area  arrived at Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday morning and were allowed to travel home in taxis without having their temperatures checked or filling in forms detailing where they would be quarantined for the requisite 14 days.

The incident came despite Netanyahu last week ordering all incoming passengers to Israel to be quarantined at specially designated hotels around the country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference about the coronavirus, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on March 25, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

However, legally passengers can’t be forced to move into the quarantine hotels, with neither the police, nor the military which operates the facilities, legally able to compel travelers to go there.

A Health Ministry source told The Times of Israel on Friday that passengers who could prove they could self-isolate were allowed to leave the airport independently and return to their homes, while those who could not were sent to state-supervised hotels for a 14-day quarantine period.

The official said that while the ministry would prefer for all passengers to be sent to hotels, complications deriving from a legal opinion submitted by the Attorney General were preventing that from happening. He called the opinion a “complete misunderstanding” of the situation.

No response had been received from the Attorney General’s office by the time of writing.

A Magen David Adom ambulance at Tel Aviv’s Dan Panorama hotel, which was turned into quarantine facility, on March 26, 2020. (Gili Yaari /Flash90)

According to data from the Corona National Information and Knowledge Center, approximately one third of infections in Israel are in people who have returned from abroad, Channel 12 reported, noting that many of those cases were in people traveling from New York.

The Saturday morning flight had received exceptional approval from authorities to land in Israel despite the current lockdown. According to Channel 13 news, only seven out of around 80 passengers on the New York flight were taken to quarantine hotels.

Medical personnel transport a body from a refrigerated container at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, Wednesday, April 8, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

A Health Ministry official told Channel 13 news on Saturday that “the continued arrival of flights from New York and failure to transfer passengers to [specially designated] hotels is negligent.”

“All landings must be transferred to the hotels, which are mostly empty. People landing at Ben Gurion Airport refuse to move to hotels, and right now there is no real desire to force them as emergency regulations allow,” the unnamed official said.

Current procedure at Ben Gurion Airport is supposed to be that upon arrival, passengers have their temperature checked by Magen David Adom ambulance service personnel and have to fill out a questionnaire about their health and who they have been in contact with.

Health Ministry representatives are then supposed to hand a list of those passengers who were found to be at risk, or who did not sign a self-isolation guarantee, to the Home Front Command, which is then responsible for transporting those persons to a designated quarantine hotel. The hotels are also under the responsibility of the Home Front Command.

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett of Yamina, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting of right-wing parties, March 4, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The Defense Ministry, which is in charge of implementation of the plan, has cited “legal and procedural complications,” that prevent it from sending all incoming passengers to quarantine and only enable it to send to quarantine hotels those passengers who have not signed a declaration that they have an independent arrangement for self-isolation.

In late March, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett presented a plan for mandatory quarantine of all arrivals. However, he later acknowledged that the plan had been shelved.

On April 1, a day after Bennett’s acknowledgement, Netanyahu reinstated the plan to require all arrivals from abroad to be quarantined in a hotel or other designated facility for 14 days.

A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office at the time said that the policy was effective immediately. Netanyahu promised in a national broadcast that it would be implemented right away, but passengers have continued to arrive in Israel and head home independently.

The Hebrew language Ynet website reported Thursday that incoming passengers on a United Airlines flight from New Jersey that landed earlier that day, in the midst of a particularly stringent nationwide closure imposed for the start of Passover, traveled home by taxi, despite an explicit prohibition on moving between towns.

One passenger told the website that he had signed the self-isolation guarantee although he did not in fact have any arrangement in place for the quarantine period.

“I still don’t know where I’ll go into self-isolation,” he said. “But first I’ll go home and then I’ll figure it out.”

Iran’s health ministry on Thursday said 117 new deaths from the novel coronavirus took the total to 4,110 in one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic.

But ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said the latest figures showed there was a downward trend in the number of new coronavirus infections.

“Today we are clearly seeing a decline in the number of new cases,” Jahanpour said in a televised news conference. “We have identified 1,634 new cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 66,220.”

The spokesman praised the people of Iran for following guidelines aimed at stopping the spread of the COVID-19 disease.

“We owe the reduction in the number of cases of the disease to… our beloved people, as well as to the intervention of our colleagues in the health system,” said Jahanpour.

“In the past 24 hours we have lost 117 people. We have had a total of 4,110 deaths due to the COVID-19 disease.”

Iranian women, members of the paramilitary Basij organisation, make face masks and other protective items at a mosque in the capital Tehran, amid the coronavirus pandemic crisis, April 5, 2020. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran, which announced its first coronavirus cases on February 19, is by far the worst hit by the pandemic in the Middle East, according to official tolls.

But there has been speculation abroad that the real number of deaths and infections in the country could be higher. Opposition sources in the country have claimed that the real toll could be as much as four times higher.

In response to the health crisis, Iran shut schools and universities as well as cinemas, stadiums and holy Shiite Muslim shrines.

Authorities have repeatedly appealed to the public to refrain from gatherings, especially over the Persian New Year holidays that ended last week.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday flagged a gradual reopening of “low-risk” businesses within the next week.

But authorities have yet to specify which businesses qualify for the first phase of measures aimed at protecting Iran’s sanctions-hit economy.

The parliament, or Majles, convened on Tuesday for the first time since the outbreak forced its closure on February 25. At least 31 of the legislature’s 290 members have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday called on Iranians to pray at home during the upcoming Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

“In the absence of public gatherings during Ramadan, such as prayers, speeches… which we are deprived of this year, we should not neglect worship, invocation and humility in our loneliness,” he said in a televised speech. “We need to create humility and supplication in our families and in our rooms.”

Ramadan is set to start in the last week of April this year.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

The national death toll from the coronavirus pandemic rose to 94 Friday, with six new deaths reported by the Health Ministry, as Israel’s number of confirmed cases surpassed 10,000.

Meanwhile, officials reported 127 new diagnosed cases, putting the updated national number at 10,095. Of those cases, 164 were in serious condition, with 125 on ventilators. Another 178 people were in moderate condition, with the rest having mild symptoms. And 1,061 have recovered from the illness.

Two of the dead were women, 86 and 84 years old, who had been hospitalized at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The hospital said they had both suffered from complex preexisting conditions. The two were residents of the same assisted living facility in Jerusalem.

Two woman, in their 80s, died at Laniado Hospital in Netanya. One 90-year-old man, a resident of an old-age home in the northern town of Yavne’el, died at the Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera. Another woman, Lea Schwartz, 85, died at a geriatric hospital in Jaffa.

The novel coronavirus has been spreading quickly in nursing homes around the country, raising intense concern for the safety of elderly residents. The Health Ministry said Thursday it was conducting tests over Passover at assisted living facilities where there have been confirmed COVID-19 cases, adding that 3,000 tests were expected to be performed on each of the coming days.

Almost all of those who have died from COVID-19 in Israel have been elderly and suffered from preexisting conditions, according to hospital officials.

While the death toll has continued to steadily climb, experts have pointed to the relatively slow rise in the number of patients on ventilators as a source of potential encouragement.

Putting a dent in the optimism, health officials are projecting that Israel will fall short of testing 10,000 people a day for the coronavirus in the immediate term because of a shortage of a key reagent.

A national lockdown barring intercity travel came into effect Tuesday ahead of the Passover holiday and was lifted Friday morning. Separately, a curfew was maintained over the first night of the holiday on Wednesday, to prevent further spread of the virus, and lifted at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning.