Israeli police handed out 10,000 tickets for violations of Health Ministry regulations over the past weekend. The fines came during the middle of the current lockdown, and just before the government decides to tighten restrictions. The police have said that they are particularly cracking down on transportation violations, violations relating to mass gatherings, as well as violations of businesses that are open that should not be.

Of the tickets distributed, nearly 7,000 were due to people leaving the 1,000-meter radius that is permitted for unnecessary reasons. Close to 2,000 tickets were handed out for people not wearing a mask or wearing one improperly. 106 tickets were distributed for people breaking their isolation, and close to 500 were handed out for people being in a public space that had no permission to hold an activity there.

94 tickets were issued in the Ben Shemen forest to citizens who held large picnic gatherings. Police fined a restaurant in Tel Aviv for being open and serving customers who were eating at the establishment and no via deliveries. Likewise, officers discovered that the employees at the restaurant were not wearing masks. The restaurant was forcibly closed for a period of seven days and the owners fined 5,000 NIS.

Police also visited 4,916 businesses to make sure that they were in compliance with the regulations or were properly closed and issued dozens of fines. Police also checked in on more than 1,000 confirmed patients who are recovering at home, to make sure that they stayed home, and checked in on 5,689 people who were in home isolation.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)