On election day, four polling stations will be opened at Ben Gurion Airport for the benefit of Israelis who return to Israel on the same day, the Election Commission announced this morning (Thursday).
The High Court ruled yesterday that the daily restriction on arrivals to Israel will be lifted the next day, on Saturday, all those vaccinated and recovering will be able to enter the country with almost no restrictions, except for corona checks. Airlines will be able to obtain landing permits in Israel Significantly higher than it was supposed to be so far.
Airlines have applied for approval of about 50 daily flights. The fear was that the limit would be 3,000 entrants a day It will allow the Ministry of Transportation to approve only about 15 flights a day, but a High Court ruling will mean that tens of thousands of Israelis are expected to leave the country as early as this Passover, at this stage without fear of being stuck abroad without the possibility of returning to Israel.
MResilience and recovery are completely exempt from isolation, but are required to perform a corona test before returning to the country and immediately after landing. Anyone who has not been vaccinated or recovered is required to undergo a test and go into isolation for 10 days subject to two tests or 14-day isolation without tests.
Since January 2021, restrictions have been placed on leaving and entering Israel due to the discovery of new strains (variants) of the corona virus, for which there is concern about the effectiveness of the vaccine. The High Court held that the restrictions constitute a violation of the core constitutional right to enter and leave Israel and other rights that are at the core of the fabric of democratic life.
The court further noted that the long and continuous period of time in which the restrictions apply, imposed without sufficient time for citizens to organize and without clarifying the date when they will be fully removed, along with the proximity to Election Day, intensifies the violation of civil rights.
The court also noted that the restrictions were set without the government having any data on the number of citizens abroad who wish to return to Israel, because no explanation was given as to why the daily passenger quota was set at 3,000. In addition, the government seems to prefer a regime of entry quotas to Israel An idea that is easier to implement but that violates basic rights in a much more difficult way. This conclusion is sharpened in light of the fact that the State of Israel is the only democratic state in the world where the right of citizens to enter their country has been so sweeping..
According to the High Court, the threat of the corona plague on its various strains is not expected to disappear from our lives in the foreseeable future, despite the success of the vaccination campaign. Therefore, the damage that may be caused by the infiltration of an unknown strain of the virus Citizens of the country and its residents This balance should allow a routine of life alongside the virus, while properly managing the risks involved, which takes into account, among other things, the reduced risk to the vaccinated and recovering population, while giving appropriate weight to the outgoing or incoming Israeli citizen. .
Justice Yitzhak Amit noted that already on the day the government decided to close the gates of Ben Gurion Airport “from today to tomorrow”, it was clear that closing the sky could not be a long-term solution, nor a short-term solution, and that an immediate solution to the cardinal problem of isolating Judge Handel stressed that the restrictions do not stand the test of proportionality in the narrow sense, given the fact that relevant data were not in front of the decision-makers’ eyes..