Israel tightens restrictions as virus cases leap

The largely inoculated country has reported its highest daily infection figures since January

People show lax commitment to wearing masks at a market in Jerusalem on August 11. AFP

New restrictions to curb Covid transmission took effect in Israel on Wednesday after the largely inoculated country had its highest daily infection figure since January.

The measures, announced on Sunday, require vaccination certificates or negative coronavirus tests to enter public spaces including restaurants and bars, cultural and sports venues, hotels and gyms.

The same applies to worshippers wishing to enter synagogues, mosques or churches with more than 50 people in attendance.

Entry to shops, malls and industrial parks has been limited to one person for every seven square metres.

After its launch last December, Israel's vaccination drive helped to drastically bring down infections.

The Health Ministry says 58 per cent of Israel's 9.3 million residents have received two shots of Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine.

But infections are surging again, driven by the spread of the more contagious Delta variant, with restrictions that were lifted in June reimposed in July.

The ministry said more than 8,700 people showed positive test results for coronavirus on Tuesday.

In recent weeks, the state has begun administering booster shots to Israelis aged 50 and over, while urging the vaccination of children as young as 12.

About one million Israelis have not been vaccinated, even though they are eligible.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has warned that if inoculation numbers do not increase, Israel could be facing another lockdown in the high holiday season, which begins with New Year celebrations on September 6.

Mr Bennett said his government's "strategy is clear ... protect everyone's health and keep the country open, because a new lockdown would be destructive to the future of the state".

"Vaccines work," he said. "It is a scientific fact. It saves lives."

Cases are also rising among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Official figures show that infection rates have risen seven-fold since August 1, with several hundred cases a day reported recently after weeks of two-digit totals.

The Palestinian Health Ministry official in charge of hospitals, Naji Nazzal, blamed the surge and the rising number of hospital admissions on the Delta variant, the official Wafa news agency reported.

The Health Ministry spokesman in Hamas-controlled Gaza, Ashraf Al Qudra, said on Wednesday that the coastal strip was suffering "the third wave of this epidemic".

Gaza resident Helen El Jamel told AFP that people became complacent after cases ebbed and "were mixing in the markets, did not use sterilisers and did not wear a mask".