Israel’s three-night Purim curfew starts Thursday

The police have published a map of their plans for enforcing the curfew on the three days of Purim on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The curfew is intended to abort the traditional large celebrations and parades, natural hothouses for the spread of coronavirus. Dozens of police roadblocks are to monitor weekend traffic on the highways and in the cities during the nocturnal shutdown. To beat the curfew, dozens of big outdoor parties were staged on beaches, markets and nature spots on Wednesday night. Several organizers were caught and fined.

On Wednesday, 4,298 new coronavirus cases were recorded and an infection rate of 5.9.2pc. Critical cases in hospital dropped to 770 with 249 on respirators while the number of fatalities rose to  5,673.