Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein. Photo: Edelstein’s Twitter account.

i24 News – Israel Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said on Tuesday morning that individuals and businesses should expect the country’s current lockdown to be extended past its current expiration date of October 10.

While speaking with Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Edelstein made it clear that Israel’s second national lockdown, said to be much more prohibitive than the first in March and April, would be lifted gradually over an extended period of time.

“The closure will not be lifted — unequivocally. There is no scenario that in 10 days we will lift everything and say, ‘everything is over, everything is fine,’” Edelstein told the Hebrew-language outlet.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday morning that the government was preparing the country’s health system to accommodate some 1,500 seriously ill coronavirus patients in the coming days.

The premier added that a lockdown exit strategy was also being devised to prevent the country from relapsing into another national quarantine.

According to Israel Health Ministry data released on Tuesday, some 1,121 new cases of COVID-19 were discovered over the Yom Kippur holiday, with only 8,105 people being tested on Monday.

So far, 1,507 Israelis have died from the coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic in March, with the ministry recording another 65,025 active cases.

Among the 755 patients considered to be in serious condition, 207 are currently on ventilators.