TEL AVIV:The Israeli Health Ministry on announced its decision to ban travel to seven more countries to prevent the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant.
The ban will take effect on December 20 and will include the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Finland, France and Sweden, which will be labelled as "red" countries, Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying.
The list of "red" countries already includes most of the African countries.
All Israelis returning from the banned countries, including vaccinated and recovered ones, must enter quarantine for at least seven days.
Foreign nationals are not allowed to travel from these countries to Israel, except in humanitarian cases with the approval of a special governmental committee.