JERUSALEM (REUTERS) - Israel on Saturday (Nov 27) said it would ban the entry of all foreigners into the country, making it the first country to shut its borders completely in response to a new and potentially more contagious coronavirus variant.
It added that it would use counter-terrorism phone-tracking technology to contain the spread of the Omicron variant.
Morocco, meanwhile, will ban all inbound international passenger flights for two weeks starting Monday (Nov 29) due to concerns over the Omicron COVID-19 variant, the Moroccan government said in a statement on Sunday.
On Friday, Morocco's foreign ministry banned the entry of travellers arriving from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Zimbabwe due to concerns related to the spread of the Omicron variant.
Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement that the ban, pending government approval, would last 14 days.
Officials hope that within that period, there will be more information on how effective Covid-19 vaccines are against Omicron, which was first detected in South Africa and has been dubbed a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organisation.
"Our working hypotheses are that the variant is already in nearly every country and that the vaccine is effective, although we don't yet know to what degree," Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked told N12 News.
Israelis entering the country, including those who are vaccinated, will be required to undergo quarantine, Mr Bennett said.
The ban will come into effect at midnight between Sunday and Monday. A travel ban on foreigners coming from most African states was imposed on Friday.
Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov said on Sunday that Israel will host the Miss Universe beauty pageant on Dec 12 despite the travel restrictions.
He said participants in the contest, to be held in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, will be granted waivers from the curbs while possibly being subject to PCR testing every 48 hours and other precautionary measures.
"This is an event that will be broadcast in 174 countries, a very important event, a event that Eilat, too, is very much in need of," Razvozov told reporters.
"We will know how to manage this event. So, by using the waivers committee, we will have events like this, to which the country already committed itself and which we cannot cancel."
The Shin Bet counter-terrorism agency's phone-tracking technology will be used to locate carriers of the new variant to curb its transmission to others, Mr Bennett said.
Used on and off since March 2020, the surveillance technology matched virus carriers' locations against other mobile phones nearby to determine with whom they had come into contact.
Israel's Supreme Court this year limited the scope of its use after civil rights groups mounted challenges over privacy concerns.
The variant, which has also been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany and Britain, has sparked global concern and a wave of travel curbs, although epidemiologists say such restrictions may be too late to stop Omicron from circulating globally.
Israel has so far confirmed one case of Omicron, with seven suspected cases. The Health Ministry has not said whether the confirmed case was vaccinated. Three of the seven suspected cases were fully vaccinated, the ministry said on Saturday, and three had not returned from travel abroad recently.
Around 57 per cent of Israel's 9.4 million population are fully vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry, which means they have either received a third shot of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine or it has not yet been five months since they received their second dose.
Israel has recorded 1.3 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and more than 8,000 fatalities since the pandemic began.
