Israel

Netanyahu urged the ministers to approve a proposal to close Israel's international Ben Gurion Airport and cease all outgoing and incoming international flights. The new variants pose "an urgent" need to impose drastic measures. "One variant that arrives without been caught will cause exponential infections," he said.

In a statement on Monday, Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said that the UAE government has notified its Israeli counterparts that the implementation of the agreement has been suspended until July 1 "in the wake of efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus", Xinhua news agency reported.

The sounds of Syrian anti-air weapons were heard in Damascus following the attack on Wednesday night. The report cited a military source as saying that the attack was carried out from over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and targeted some military sites in south of Damascus.

The strikes killed 217 Syrian soldiers and pro-Iran fighters, Xinhua news agency quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying in a report on Saturday. The latest Israeli attack took place on Wednesday when Israeli missiles targeted a military base in the Zabadani suburb west of Damascus, resulting in the death of one soldier, while three others were injured.

Israel is leading the race with a rate of 11.55 vaccination doses per 100 people, according to statistics from the 'Our World in Data' website affiliated with Oxford University. Israel began vaccinations on December 19 as the country secured supplies of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after negotiations early on during the pandemic, according to a BBC report on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday, Israeli warplanes struck targets belong to Hamas military wing in the Gaza Strip in response to firing rockets into southern Israel. According to sources, the Israeli missiles struck Hamas training facilities in eastern, western, and northern Gaza city, adding that two people, including a six-year-old child, were injured.

The Israeli missile strike on Friday targeted the defence factories where a scientific research centre is located in the city of Masyaf in Hama province, Xinhua news agency quoted the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying in a statement.

The government, formed just seven months ago, was plagued by consistent infighting. As the deadline for the approval of an annual budget passed on midnight, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, automatically dissolved. Elections are set for late March 2021, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

The Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is a significant factor behind the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and one of the main reasons for the breakdown of the last peace talks between the two sides in 2014. Israeli media reported last week that the goal of building up new roads is to expand settlements to increase the number of settlers in the West Bank to 1 million.

Moroccan King Mohammed VI has informed US President Donald Trump during a telephonic conversation on Thursday that his country "will also work on developing innovative relationships in the economic and technological fields with Israel," the statement said.