The Israeli government decided on Sunday evening to extend by five days the containment measures which were to end at midnight, the prime minister's office and the health ministry said.
With the number of infected people still on the rise despite an intense vaccination campaign, the government has extended for the third time the confinement imposed on December 27 on the Israeli population, the third since the start of the pandemic.
After a long meeting, the ministers agreed to maintain containment until 7 a.m. Friday.
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The government will meet next Wednesday to examine the situation and consider a further extension, the statement said. The lockdown was violated Sunday by thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews who attended a rabbi's funeral in Jerusalem. The burial of another rabbi in the same town in the evening prompted a further breach of containment: while only 20 people are allowed by law to follow the remains of a deceased, they were indeed thousands gathered for Rabbi Yitzhak Sheiner's funeral.
