JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will self-isolate on Monday after having come into contact with a coronavirus patient, his office said calling it a precautionary step.
Netanyahu tested negative for the virus on Sunday and on Monday, but he will still “enter isolation until Friday following contact with a confirmed coronavirus patient,” the statement said.
Several Israeli media outlets have reported that Netanyahu met last week with a member of his right-wing Likud party, Michael Kleiner, who has subsequently tested positive for the virus.
The statement from the prime minister’s office did not provide details regarding Netanyahu’s potential exposure.
Netanyahu was at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport last week to welcome a first shipment of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine.
He declared that the end of the pandemic was “in sight” and offered to take the first jab in a mass vaccination campaign due to start later this month.
Israel, a country of nine million people, has registered more than 358,000 coronavirus cases, including 3003 deaths.
Israel’s Netanyahu to enter precautionary virus quarantine
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Israel’s Netanyahu to enter precautionary virus quarantine
- Netanyahu tested negative for the virus on Sunday and on Monday, but he will still “enter isolation"
Lebanon says one killed in Israeli strike on Palestinian refugee camp
- NNA said “an Israeli drone” targeted a neighborhood of the Ain Al-Helweh camp
- It reported that one person was killed and an unspecified number wounded
SIDON, Lebanon: An Israeli strike on Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp killed one person on Friday, state media reported, with the Israeli army saying it had targeted the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The official National News Agency said “an Israeli drone” targeted a neighborhood of the Ain Al-Helweh camp, which is located on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon.
It reported that one person was killed and an unspecified number wounded.
An AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from a building in the densely populated camp as ambulances headed to the scene.
The Israeli army said in a statement that its forces “struck a Hamas command center from which terrorists operated.”
Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon despite a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with the militant group Hezbollah.
Israel has also struck targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas, including in a raid on Ain Al-Helweh last November that killed 13 people.
The UN rights office had said 11 children were killed in that strike, which Israel said targeted a Hamas training compound, though the group denied it had military installations in Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
In October 2023, Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the outset of the Gaza war, triggering months of exchanges that culminated in two months of all-out war in Lebanon.
On Sunday, Lebanon said an Israeli strike near the Syrian border in the country’s east killed four people, as Israel said it targeted operatives from Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
