Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

With aid in balance, Syrians who fled Assad fear deeper hardship

By Mahmoud Hassano

IDLIB PROVINCE, Syria (Reuters) – Having fled their homes to escape President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, many of Syrians sheltering in the rebel-held northwest fear their fate may once again be placed in his hands.

Russia, Assad’s key ally, wants U.N. aid to the region to come through the capital Damascus and not via Turkey, raising fears that food on which they rely will fall under their oppressor’s control.

A U.N. mandate to supply aid from Turkey, currently via the Bab al-Hawa crossing, expires on Saturday, and while Western members of the U.N. Security Council want to extend and expand it, veto powers Russia and China are wary of renewing it.

Russia skipped negotiations on the issue on Tuesday.

Hossam Kaheil, who fled to Idlib in 2018 when the rebellion in Ghouta, just outside Damascus, was defeated, does not trust Syrian authorities to let aid through if supply lines are changed.

“In Idlib the situation is good, but if they close the crossings, there will be a humanitarian catastrophe,” said the 36-year-old, who recalls being so hungry in 2014, as the Syrian army laid siege to Ghouta, that he had to eat animal feed.

He added that two of his siblings died due to medical shortages during the siege, described by U.N. investigators as the longest in modern history.

U.N. aid across the Turkish border has helped to keep millions of Syrians supplied with food, medicine and water in the last part of Syria still held by anti-Assad insurgents.

Syria says it is committed to facilitating the delivery of U.N. aid from within the country. The Syrian information ministry did not respond to emailed questions from Reuters for this article.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that the Red Cross and Red Crescent should be allowed to observe if there were suspicions of any stealing, although he did not think that would happen.

RUSSIAN LEVERAGE

The tussle marks a diplomatic front in a war that has been in military stalemate for several years, with Moscow and Damascus seeking to reassert state sovereignty over a corner of Syria outside their control.

Since winning back the bulk of Syria with Russian and Iranian help, Assad has struggled to advance further: Turkish forces block his path in the northwest, and U.S. forces are on the ground in the Kurdish-controlled east, where oilfields, farmland and land routes to Iraq are located.

Government-held Syria, along with the rest of the country, is in economic crisis. Assad’s plans for reconstruction and economic revival, which came to little, faced new headwinds with the imposition of new U.S. sanctions last year.

“This is a moment of leverage for Russia – a wrangle over strategic advantage in which humanitarian issues are being used as the fulcrum,” said Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

“Unfortunately the Syrian people are the real losers in this battle between Russia and the United States.”

The United States wants the aid mandate renewed. So does Turkey, which exercises sway in the northwest through support to rebels, aid, and Turkish boots on the ground.

The United Nations has warned that failure to renew the aid operation would be devastating for millions of people.

“We don’t want to see these people becoming pawns in a political game,” said Mark Cutts, U.N. deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis.

“It is really shameful that we are talking about reducing access at a time when we should be scaling up the operation.”

The number of people dependent on aid in the northwest has grown by 20% to 3.4 million in a year, the U.N. says.

MISTRUST

Russia cites U.S. sanctions as a reason for the humanitarian problems. Washington, whose sanctions aim to cut off funds for Assad’s government, rejects this.

Agreed in 2014 when Assad was in retreat, the U.N. mandate initially allowed deliveries from four locations. Russian and Chinese opposition whittled this down to one last year. Russia says the operation is outdated.

Delivering aid across frontlines has proven difficult if not impossible throughout the war.

“We’ve requested access for cross-line convoys multiple times … because we would like as much access as possible from all sides, but the war is not over,” Cutts said.

“In this kind of environment, it is very difficult to get agreement from the parties on both sides for convoys to move across that frontline.”

Insurgents in the northwest include groups proscribed as terrorists by the Security Council. U.N. oversight has prevented aid being diverted to armed groups, Cutts said, expressing concern that the loss of such oversight may deter donors.

Durmus Aydin, secretary-general of Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), part of the aid operation, told Reuters that aid deliveries across frontlines did not seem possible at the moment.

“One of the reasons this isn’t a realistic solution is the mistrust in people towards the Syrian government and Russia.”

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Istanbul, Tom Perry in Beirut, Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Siemens lands $3.4 billion hybrid train order from U.S. Amtrak

MUNICH (Reuters) – Siemens Mobility said on Wednesday it had landed a $3.4 billion order from U.S. national rail transportation company Amtrak for 73 trains that will be powered by hybrid engines.

The order for the trains, which will play a transport corridor in the U.S. northeast, has an option to be expanded by up to 140 more units, Siemens Mobility said in a statement.

“The new trains will fundamentally change travel by rail. We will replace our 40- to 50-year-old fleet with modern U.S.-made trains and systems,” said CEO Bill Flynn of Amtrak.

Siemens Mobility said the order, its largest ever in the United States, would include maintenance and service.

“We believe that battery hybrid drives and dual-power trains will play an important role in reducing emissions and protecting the environment in the United States,” said Michael Peter, CEO of Siemens Mobility.

(Reporting by Alexander Huebner, Writing by Douglas Busvine, Editing by Riham Alkousaa)

Death toll in Miami condo collapse rises to 46

By Brad Brooks

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) -Search and rescue workers on Wednesday recovered 10 more bodies from the rubble of an apartment block outside Miami that collapsed last month, bringing the death toll to 46, as hopes faded that any of the 94 people still unaccounted for would be found alive.

The effort to locate survivors of the Champlain Towers South building continued in warm, dry conditions with the threat from Tropical Storm Elsa, battering the opposite side of Florida, having receded.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a briefing that in addition to the 46 confirmed dead, 94 others who may have been inside the building in Surfside when it partially collapsed on June 24 were still unaccounted for.

Levine Cava, who shed tears as she repeated her remarks in Spanish, said the rescue effort had been made easier by the planned demolition on Sunday night of the half of building that had remained standing.

“The team continues to make progress in the areas of the pile that was inaccessible prior to the demolition,” Levine Cava said.

As she spoke, a new shift of workers walked by in small groups, wearing clean uniforms and not sharing a word with each other, while a group leaving the rubble pile looked exhausted and were drenched in sweat.

Though local officials say they have not given up hope of finding survivors, no one has been discovered alive in the rubble since the first few hours after the building came down.

Asked about whether continuing the search was giving families false hope, Levine Cava said: “They are being supported to come to closure as soon as possible.”

(reporting by Brad Brooks and Franciso Alvarado; additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; editing by Jonathan Oatis and John Stonestreet)

Haitian president assassinated at home, sparking fears of widespread turmoil

By Andre Paultre

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -Haitian President Jovenel Moise was shot dead by unidentified attackers in his private residence overnight in a “barbaric act,” the government said on Wednesday, stirring fears of escalating turmoil in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The assassination coincided with a wave of gang violence in Port-au-Prince as armed groups have battled with police and one another for control of the streets in recent months, turning many districts of the capital into no-go zones.

The 53-year-old president’s wife, Martine Moise, was also shot in the attack that took place around 1 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and was receiving medical treatment, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement.

“A group of unidentified individuals, some of them speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president of the republic and thus fatally wounded the head of state,” he said.

Joseph said the police and army had the security situation under control though gunfire could be heard throughout the crime-ridden capital of 1 million people after the attack.

With Haiti politically polarized and facing a growing humanitarian crisis and shortages of food, fears of widespread chaos are spreading. The Dominican Republic said it was closing the border it shares with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola.

The bloodshed in Haiti is driven by worsening poverty and political unrest.

TURBULENT HISTORY

The country of about 11 million people – the poorest nation in the western hemisphere – has struggled to achieve stability since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, and grappled with a series of coups and foreign interventions.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission – meant to restore order after a rebellion toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 – ended in 2019 with the country still in turmoil. In recent years, Haiti has been buffeted by a series of natural disasters and still bears the scars of a major earthquake in 2010.

Moise, a banana exporter-turned-politician, faced fierce protests after taking office as president in 2017. This year, the opposition accused him of seeking to install a dictatorship by overstaying his mandate and becoming more authoritarian. He denied those accusations.

“All measures are being taken to guarantee the continuity of the state and to protect the nation,” Joseph said.

Moise had ruled by decree for more than a year after the country failed to hold legislative elections and wanted to push through a controversial constitutional reform.

The U.S. Embassy said in a statement it would be closed on Wednesday due to the “ongoing security situation”.

The United States is assessing the “tragic attack” and President Joe Biden will be briefed on the assassination, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in Washington.

“We stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed,” she said. “Of course our embassy and State Department will be in close touch but it’s a tragedy. We stand with them and it’s important that people of Haiti know that.”

The United States had on June 30 condemned what it described as a systematic violation of human rights, fundamental freedoms and attacks on the press in Haiti, urging the government to counter a proliferation of gangs and violence.

Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader held an emergency meeting early on Wednesday about the situation in Haiti but had yet to issue a statement.

(Reporting by Andre Paultre in Port-au-Prince with additional reporting by Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washington Writing by Sarah MarshEditing by Daniel Flynn and Mark Heinrich)

Iran begins process of making enriched uranium metal; U.S., E3 dismayed

By Francois Murphy, Humeyra Pamuk and Arshad Mohammed

VIENNA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Iran has begun the process of producing enriched uranium metal, the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Tuesday, a move that could help it develop a nuclear weapon and that three European powers said threatened talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Iran’s steps, which were disclosed by the International Atomic Energy Agency and which Tehran said were aimed at developing fuel for a research reactor, also drew criticism from the United States, which called them an “unfortunate step backwards.”

U.S. and European officials made clear that Iran’s decision would complicate, and potentially torpedo, indirect U.S.-Iranian talks seeking to bring both nations back into compliance with the 2015 deal, which was abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

The deal imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear program to make it harder for Tehran to develop fissile material for nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. After Trump withdrew, Iran began violating many of its restrictions.

Tehran has already produced a small amount of uranium metal this year that was not enriched. That is a breach of the deal, which bans all work on uranium metal since it can be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb.

“Today, Iran informed the Agency that UO2 (uranium oxide) enriched up to 20% U–235 would be shipped to the R&D laboratory at the Fuel Fabrication Plant in Esfahan, where it would be converted to UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) and then to uranium metal enriched to 20% U–235, before using it to manufacture the fuel,” an IAEA statement said.

A confidential IAEA report seen by Reuters said the agency had confirmed that Iran had taken the second of the four steps described, making clear it has begun the process.

Britain, France and Germany said on Tuesday they had “grave concern” about Iran’s decision, which violates the nuclear deal formally named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon,” they said in a joint statement issued by Britain’s foreign ministry.

“With its latest steps, Iran is threatening a successful outcome to the Vienna talks despite the progress achieved in six rounds of negotiations,” they said, and urged Iran to return to the talks, which began in April and adjourned on June 20. No date has been set for a next round.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Washington was not setting a deadline for the talks but noted “that as time proceeds Iran’s nuclear advances will have a bearing on our view of returning to the JCPOA.”

Price said the United States found it “worrying” that Iran was continuing to violate the agreement “especially with experiments that have value for nuclear weapons research.

“It’s another unfortunate step backwards for Iran,” he said.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and by Humeyra Pamuk and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Jonathan Landay and Simon Lewis in Washington and by David Milliken in London; Writing by Francois Murphy and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by David Goodman and Sonya Hepinstall)

Promise vs practice: Police body-cam delays in Texas capital frustrate reformers

By Alexandra Ulmer and Julia Harte

AUSTIN, Texas – Advocates of police reform in Austin, Texas, cheered a year ago when the city agreed to release video from officers’ body cameras within 60 days of incidents in which they used force that caused serious injuries.

But since then, only a single body camera video has been released on time – in a non-fatal police shooting. Footage from three fatal police shootings was made public past the deadline. In at least 10 use-of-force incidents during Black Lives Matter protests last year, the department did not release any video.

Across the United States, where a complex thicket of laws stymies public access to body-camera footage, activists have urged law enforcement to release video to increase transparency and accountability in policing.

The effort gained greater urgency after high-profile cases of officers using force against people of color elevated concerns about racial bias, including the police murder of George Floyd. But enthusiasm for body-worn cameras, which about 80% of large U.S. police forces have, has been tested as their use has not guaranteed public access to footage.

That has been the case in Austin, the liberal capital of conservative Texas. An examination of how the city’s police department has put the promise of increased transparency into practice shows the limitations of body cameras as a solution to excessive force and unjust policing.

“It does make me question the whole edifice of body-worn cameras as an accountability or oversight tool,” said Chris Harris, director of the criminal justice project at Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit.

Two Austin police shootings just a day apart highlight the uneven success of the body-camera video release policy.

On Jan. 4, Dylan Polinski, who was 23 at the time, was shot by police in the leg after he barricaded himself in a hotel room with a hostage. He survived.

The next day, Alex Gonzales, 27, was shot by an off-duty officer after an alleged “road rage” incident and then shot again by an on-duty officer called as reinforcement. Gonzales, who was in a car with his girlfriend and baby, died.

Body-camera footage in Polinski’s case was released by the deadline. Gonzales’ family, which believes he was wrongfully killed and plans to sue the two officers and the city, expected the video from his shooting would be too.

AGONIZING WAIT

“We were counting down the days,” his sister Angel Gonzales, 21, said in the backyard of their home on the outskirts of Austin on a sweltering June afternoon. “And they kept delaying it last minute.”

During the family’s wait, police twice put out statements explaining the hold-ups, citing weather-related closures and investigative needs. His mother Liz Gonzales said it was upsetting to steel herself for the video of her son’s death ahead of each deadline, only to be confronted with delays.

The video was finally released in April, 113 days after the shooting. Prosecutors say they expect to present the case to a grand jury by early winter.

Joseph Chacon, Austin’s interim police chief, said there have been legitimate reasons for delays in releasing video, including insufficient resources for the time-intensive process of preparing the footage for public disclosure.

However, the policy enacted under his predecessor needs to be overhauled to achieve its goal of more transparency, said Chacon, who is seeking to be hired as the next chief.

“We put a policy out there and said: ‘We’re going to do it within 60 days.’ They have an expectation and when we fail to meet that expectation, that erodes that trust,” Chacon said in an interview.

The proliferation of police body cameras nationwide reflects the growing view that citizens have a right to scrutinize how officers perform in the field, though police largely see the cameras as evidence-gathering tools.

Additionally, some activists believe officers are less likely to discriminate or use excessive force when they are recorded. Research to confirm this has produced mixed results.

But experts agree that if video is recorded, slow or inconsistent release of the footage stokes public mistrust and reinforces perceptions that police want to hide officer misconduct.

CHANGE AHEAD

Chacon said the department can only prepare footage from one case at a time and had to prioritize Polinski’s shooting because it happened first. He wants to reduce processing time by no longer editing videos and instead release near-raw footage.

Rebecca Webber, a civil rights lawyer who has criticized the Austin Police Department’s delays, welcomed Chacon’s proposal.

“It’s the obvious solution. I am 100% in favor,” she said.

Other cities in Texas have adopted shorter footage release timelines for critical incidents. Dallas says it does so within 72 hours, while Houston takes up to 30 days.

Police in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center were commended in April for releasing body-cam footage from the officer shooting death of Daunte Wright, a Black man, within 24 hours.

But in other places, body-cam video has been released years after an event — or never. In the New York police killing of Kawaski Trawick in April 2019, the Bronx district attorney released the footage 18 months later.

When demonstrators were injured during racial justice protests in Austin last year, the city’s police department said it would not release videos until the district attorney decided whether to present the cases to a grand jury.

After Reuters’ questions about the delay, the DA’s office – where a new chief, Jose Garza, was elected in November – said it no longer objected to releasing footage. Among Garza’s campaign pledges was to hold police officers accountable for misconduct.

Sam Kirsch, 27, is eager to view the video. He believes severe damage to his left eye during a May 2020 protest was caused by a police projectile, and he has sued both police and the city.

The DA’s office is investigating. In court filings, the officer said he was performing within his scope of duty.

“If I were able to see the footage of me, and hear what may have been said, I could know if I was targeted,” Kirsch said. “If I knew for a fact that I was not intentionally targeted, I could feel a little bit safer living in Austin.”

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer in Austin and Julia Harte in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman)

Biden to zero in on Delta variant as U.S. approaches 160 million COVID-19 vaccinations

(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will encourage Americans who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get their shots to protect themselves from the widely-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus, the White House said on Tuesday.

Biden is scheduled to make remarks on Tuesday afternoon after receiving a briefing from his advisers. A White House official said the country will be “nearing” 160 million people fully vaccinated by the end of the week.

“He will speak to the American people about the strong progress that the country has made in recovery because of its robust vaccination campaign, as well as the importance of every eligible American getting vaccinated, especially as the Delta variant continues to grow among unvaccinated people across the country,” the official said about Biden’s planned remarks.

The Delta variant, which is becoming dominant in many countries, is more easily transmitted than earlier versions of the coronavirus and may cause more severe disease, especially among younger people. It has now been found in every U.S. state, health officials have said.

Biden will also discuss how the administration plans to make the vaccine available in more healthcare settings, the official said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. and Russian officials will meet next week on ransomware – White House

By Raphael Satter and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Ransomware attacks on U.S. businesses, such as the latest one centered on Florida IT firm Kaseya, will be discussed at a meeting of senior U.S. and Russian officials next week, the White House said on Tuesday.

“We expect to have a meeting next week focused on ransomware attacks,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

The ransomware attack on Friday scrambled the data of hundreds of small businesses worldwide, including many in the United States. Kaseya said in a statement on Tuesday they were never a threat to critical U.S. infrastructure, however.

The cyberattack was the latest in a series of intrusions from hackers who have made a lucrative business out of holding organizations’ data hostage in return for digital currency payments.

Although cybercrimes have been going on for years, the attacks have escalated dramatically recently, and an intrusion at Colonial Pipeline in May snarled U.S. gasoline supplies up and down the East Coast.

Psaki said Biden would meet with officials from the Justice Department, State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the intelligence community on Wednesday to discuss ransomware and U.S. efforts to counter it.

The hack that struck Kaseya’s clients – many of whom are back office IT shops commonly referred to as managed service providers – did not have the same kind of impact in the United States as the ransoming of Colonial Pipeline.

Disruption elsewhere was more severe.

In Sweden, many of the 800 grocery stores run by the Coop chain are still in the process of recovering from the attack, which knocked out most of its supermarkets, though a spokesman told Reuters “we have more open stores than closed ones now.”

In New Zealand, 11 schools and several kindergartens were affected.

Germany’s cybersecurity watchdog, BSI, said on Tuesday that it was aware of three IT service providers in Germany that have been affected, with a spokesperson estimating that several hundred companies were touched overall.

“In Germany there are no cases as prominent as the one in Sweden,” the spokesperson added.

The hackers who claimed responsibility for the breach have demanded $70 million to restore all the affected businesses’ data, although they have indicated a willingness to temper their demands in private conversations with a cybersecurity expert and with Reuters.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Douglas Busvine in Frankfurt and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm also contributed reporting. Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Alistair Bell and Sonya Hepinstall)

Exclusive-U.S. SEC advisers push for details on gender, racial diversity at fund boards

By Ross Kerber

(Reuters) -Mutual fund boards would be required to disclose information on the gender and racial diversity of their directors under a rule change recommended to the top U.S. securities regulator.

The suggestion from an advisory subcommittee of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which would need further approval, goes further than subcommittee members had outlined in the spring and mirrors a growing focus from other quarters on the financial industry’s lack of diversity.

At present, there is “virtually no representation of women and minorities” on the boards that set policies across the $29.3 trillion U.S. mutual fund industry, Gilbert Garcia, chair of the subcommittee and managing partner of a Houston investment firm, said in an interview late on Monday.

Garcia said the subcommittee does not have a specific set of disclosures in mind, but said in general more data should lead to more diversity. “The theory is that by shining transparency on this, market forces will change the makeup” of boards, he said.

The push for new information is in line with other steps aiming to show the lack of women and minority representation in many realms of U.S. business. A new Illinois law requires public companies headquartered in the state to list the race and gender of each director, for instance.

Fund boards are distinct from the directors who run publicly traded asset-management businesses like BlackRock Inc or T. Rowe Price Group, and traditionally face less public scrutiny. Fund boards oversee areas like the fees that funds pay to managers and their performance.

Garcia had said on March 19 the subcommittee would likely recommend other changes including having investment advisers report on the race and gender of officers.

That idea remains among the official recommendations the subcommittee has made to the SEC’s asset management advisory committee ahead of its Wednesday meeting, according to a subcommittee report.

Other recommendations include calls for demographic details on fund firm workforces, for new SEC guidance on how asset managers are chosen, and for a study of how political contribution rules could influence asset allocation at the expense of smaller firms owned by women and minorities.

Gary Gensler, the SEC chair appointed by U.S. President Joe Biden this year, said at a conference last month he has asked staff to propose “human capital disclosure” details that could include information on diversity and other workforce demographics.

Skeptics worry Gensler and other officials will adopt regulations that are hard to enforce on areas outside of traditional finance. Beyond social issues like board room diversity these include climate change considerations and executive pay metrics.

Speaking on a panel organized by the conservative-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, which was webcast, Jennifer Schulp, director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute think tank in Washington, said the SEC could move too quickly or overstep its mandate.

“We’re going to suffer from haste here,” she said.

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in BostonEditing by Matthew Lewis)

Israel sees drop in Pfizer vaccine protection against infections, still strong in severe illness

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel reported on Monday a decrease in the effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in preventing infections and symptomatic illness but said it remained highly effective in preventing serious illness.

The decline coincided with the spread of the Delta variant and the end of social distancing restrictions in Israel.

Vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64% since June 6, the Health Ministry said. At the same time the vaccine was 93% effective in preventing hospitalizations and serious illness from the coronavirus.

The ministry in its statement did not say what the previous level was or provide any further details. However ministry officials published a report in May that two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine provided more than 95% protection against infection, hospitalization and severe illness.

A Pfizer spokesperson declined to comment on the data from Israel, but cited other research showing that antibodies elicited by the vaccine were still able to neutralize all tested variants, including Delta, albeit at reduced strength.

About 60% of Israel’s 9.3 million population have received at least one shot of Pfizer’s vaccine in a campaign that saw daily cases drop from more than 10,000 in January to single digits last month.

This spurred Israel to drop nearly all social distancing as well as the requirement to wear masks, though the latter was partially reimposed in recent days. At the same time Delta, which has become a globally dominant variant of the coronavirus, began to spread.

Since then daily cases have gradually risen, reaching 343 on Sunday. The number of seriously ill rose to 35 from 21.

Data scientist Eran Segal of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science said the country was unlikely to experience the high levels of hospitalizations seen earlier in the year since there were much fewer critically ill.

He said it was fine to “continue with life back to normal and without restrictions” while stepping up measures like vaccination outreach and ensuring testing for Israelis returning home from abroad.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Maayan Lubell, Editing by William Maclean)