Prof. Ronni Gamzu held discussions on Sunday with Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog, Prof. Shlomo Mor Yosef from the Population and Immigration Authority and Dr. Eshi Salmon from the Health Ministry, along with representatives from the Council for Higher Education.
About 2,000 university students, 12,000 yeshiva students, 5,000 MASA participants, 500 Naale students and 1,500 students in private institutions are expected to enter the country throughout the year.
The students will only be allowed into the country if the institutions they're learning in are approved by the Health Ministry and commit to upholding quarantine regulations for two weeks in capsules of up to six students. Some 31 institutions had been approved as of Monday out of the 183 that filed requests for approval.
Any students who break quarantine regulations will face consequences and the institutions they learn at will face consequences as well. Gamzu stated earlier this week that any student who breaks Health Ministry directives will be deported and that any institution that breaks the rules will be closed.
The Health Ministry will be in charge of enforcing and monitoring the institutions. A weekly report will be issued concerning how many students receive permits to enter the country.
Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman spoke out against the decision to allow yeshiva students into the country on Saturday. Gamzu stressed on Saturday that he was also concerned and that Israel needed to "prevent an additional outbreak."
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said in an interview with N12 over the weekend that attacking only the yeshiva students was “antisemitism for its own sake... Tens of thousands come from Israel from dozens of associations, organizations and other meetings and no one opens their mouths.”
Last week, Interior Minister Arye Deri announced in a statement that his ministry would approve the entry into Israel of foreign students who were planning to begin their studies in Israel this coming October. The decision, he said, was made following professional discussions led by Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog, in conjunction with the Health and Foreign ministries.
According to EMA Care, an English-language healthcare service that advises those in Israel on how to access the healthcare system, an estimated 80% of gap year programs will close down permanently if they are not able to reopen in the fall. While most gap year programs sent their students home soon after the pandemic began, a small number of programs remained open and worked with the Health Ministry to set and follow regulations to conduct classes safely.
Not a single student in programs under EMA Care’s management was infected with the novel coronavirus.
Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman and Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.