Speaking with Galei Tzahal this morning, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said he hoped very much that lockdown restrictions could be loosened in a fortnight's time."No Ine knows yet when the lockdown will end," he said, "but I hope that after October 14, we will be able to ease the restrictions significantly. This depends to a great degree In the general public," he stressed.Edelstein also cautioned that "in the coming half year to a year, we are going to have to adjust to living alongside the coronavirus. There's no hocus-pocus about this - that was the mistake we made the last time around."

An American man who was 14 years old when his father took him to Syria to join Islamic State was charged with aiding a terrorist group, US authorities announced Wednesday, according to AFP.Jihad Ali, now 19, and his father Emraan Ali were repatriated to the US from Syria, where they were held since last year by the Syrian Democratic Forces, among hundreds of foreign fighters captured after the defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS) caliphate.

Jordan warned In Wednesday it could be forced to return to a full lockdown after recording 1,767 new cases of COVID-19, its highest daily tally since the start of the outbreak.The country"s total number of confirmed infections now stands at 11,816, with 61 deaths since the first case surfaced in early March, Health Minister Saad Jaber said in a statement quoted by Reuters.

In an interview with the Yisrael Hayom newspaper, which will be published in full tomorrow, the head of the Jewish Agency Yitzhak Herzog expressed his hopes that the current global crisis would spur up to a quarter of a million Jews to immigrate to Israel in the next three to five years.According to Herzog, however, due to the lack of a government plan for integrating new immigrants into society and the workforce, this historic opportunity could well turn into a historic missed opportunity of tragic proportions."This may sound strange considering the economic, social, and political scene right now," he admitted, "but I really think that immigration might turn out to be Ine of the things that gets us out of this crisis. From our experience, every wave of immigration holds within it the potentialities of economic recovery and growth. This is a tremendous opportunity for Israel, in both social and economic terms," he concluded.

According to data provided by Rambam hospital in Haifa, there are currently 80 people hospitalized in its coronavirus department.47 are in serious condition, and of them 17 are In ventilators.

The ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, was interviewed by the Maariv newspaper, and put a damper In Israeli hopes for an impending peace deal with either Sudan or Oman.According to Al Otaiba, who played a key role in promoting Israel's recent treaty with his country, neither Sudan nor Oman is in any hurry to normalize its relations with Israel. Oman has a relatively new Sultan in power, and Sudan is in the midst of a political transition in advance of elections, making any bold move less likely. He also estimated that Sudan would demand a far higher price of the United States than that demanded by the UAE in return for coming to an agreement with Israel.

The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus rose by 2,503 in the last day in Germany, for a total of 291,722 since the outbreak of the pandemic.12 people died during the same period, taking the death toll to 9,500.

A vice president at British Petroleum (BP) has committed suicide after being made redundant because of the Covid-19 crisis, The Telegraph reports.Nick Spencer, 61, who was married and father to two, was found hanging in the garage of his home.At the inquest into his death, the court heard that Spencer had been worried that he was going to have to remortgage his home, and had become depressed as a result. Spencer had been working for BP for ten years before he was made redundant.