An official who worked alongside the Health Ministry claims that former health minister Ya'acov Litzman deliberately encouraged the arrival of US citizens with no health insurance, many of them carriers of coronavirus. Litzman claimed that they "they had an Israeli citizenship."
Former health minister Liztman did a lot in order to help thousands of Americans reach Israel during the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, says an official who worked alongside the Health Ministry at the time.
The official added that the tourists were trying to arrive in Israel because they lacked American health insurance. Some of them were diagnosed as carriers of the coronavirus in Israel and needed treatment, which they received free of charge.
Most of them arrived from Brooklyn, boarding flights to Ben-Gurion Airport before the entry restrictions came into effect, during March. The official continued to explain that Litzman, health minister at the time and currently Construction and Housing Minister, made sure that arriving tourists who have no family members in Israel would be sent to quarantine hotels via special transport.
Some of the arriving Americans stayed with relatives and friends, but they were not closely monitored. The official claims that this contributed to the spreading of the virus and significantly increased morbidity rates.
During the second half of March, most of the arriving flights to Israel were of Americans and about a quarter of them required treatment after being diagnosed with coronavirus, an official from the tourist industry added.
Litzman has denied all involvement. In response to a query by The Jerusalem Post's sister publication, Maariv, it was stated that "Minister Litzman was the one who stopped all flight arrivals." According to Israeli law, the state is required to take in any Israeli at any time, and so it was decided in meetings with the National Security Council and prime minister to transfer every arriving Israeli to quarantine hotels. During March a group of Israelis, members of Chabad, arrived in Israel for Passover, and the minister made arrangements for the group to be admitted to a kosher hotel. All members of that group held Israeli citizenship."
Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics show that during March some 22,000 tourists entered Israel from the US. Restrictions began on March 12. During April, about 300,000 tourists entered Israel from the US alone.
By the time this article was written, the Health Ministry had refused to confirm the number of foreign coronavirus carriers who received treatment in Israel and how many of them were hospitalized. Tobias Siegal translated this article.