Israel confirmed 125 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the highest number of daily cases since April and over double the number of cases confirmed on Sunday.

Health officials say that the surge in cases has been spurred by Israelis returning from abroad and violating quarantine, with a number of school outbreaks tied to Israelis who recently returned from abroad, some of whom violated quarantine rules. According to a Kan report, the number of coronavirus cases in the school system has tripled over the past week.

Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy said that the Indian variant, now called the Delta variant, is spurring the outbreaks, with about 70% of the new cases in Israel identified as the Delta variant.

An epidemiological investigation of the outbreak in Binyamina revealed that one of the sources of the outbreak was a local gym trainer who violated quarantine and was in contact with a large number of people. As of Tuesday evening, there are 104 confirmed coronavirus cases in Binyamina and over 1,000 residents in quarantine.

“The vast majority of new verified cases is among unvaccinated children in 7th and 8th grades,” the head of the Binyamina-Giv’at Ada local council, Itai Weisberg, told Ynet.

New locales have recorded outbreaks in the past two days, with Hertzaliya and Be’er Yaakov joining Binyamina, Modiin and the Jordan Valley.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, and Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev visited Ben-Gurion Airport on Tuesday evening to evaluate the safety procedures for arriving passengers.

Additionally, Horowitz and Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Tuesday that the Defense Ministry will operate a new coronavirus testing facility at Ben-Gurion airport that will be capable of simultaneously administering hundreds of tests.

Horowitz said that those who violate quarantine will be fined up to NIS 5,000 ($1,530). Those who travel to high-risk countries, including India, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and Argentina, will face a similar fine.

An unvaccinated 49-year-old Israeli who contracted the coronavirus in Russia and infected all his family members after returning to Israel is now hospitalized in the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, the first critically ill coronavirus patient in the hospital in a month and a half.

The outbreaks have spurred Israeli parents to vaccinate their 12-15-year-old children, with the number of vaccination appointments for that age group doubling and tripling in the past few days.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)