Some 84,660 more students will return to school on Wednesday, after the Health Ministry updated its traffic-light scores to enable youth to enjoy pre-Purim festivities in their classrooms.
Among the new cities and neighborhoods that joined the list of places where schools can open – meaning they are green, yellow, or light orange with at least 70% of people over the age of 50 vaccinated – are Abu Sinan (near Acre), Alona, Ashdod, Bat Yam, Baka al-Gharbiya, Ba’ana, Beit Dagan, Bnei Brak, Elad, several areas of Hevel Modi’in, Hof Ashkelon, Kiryat Ekron, Kiryat Gat, Lachish, Lod, several places in Merom Hagalil, Mitzpe Ramon, Netivot, Nokdim, Or Yehuda, Or Akiva, Petah Tikva, Ramle, Rishon Lezion, Safed and Zarzir.
In addition, several neighborhoods in Jerusalem were added to the list: Bukharim, French Hill, Geula, Har Nof, Makor Baruch, Mea She’arim, Neveh Ya’acov, Ramot and Ramat Shlomo.
The government earlier this month approved the return of children in preschools, kindergartens and grades 1-6 and 11-12 to their classrooms in green, yellow and light-orange cities.
Until now, 1,216,159 students have returned to their classrooms in some capacity. By Wednesday, that number will be 1,300,819.
Students in grades 7-10 will continue to learn at home.
The government was expected to discuss a plan to return these children to their classrooms on Tuesday, but it pushed off the discussion to focus on Purim restrictions.
Normally, the traffic-light ranking is updated every Wednesday.
However, just as the Health Ministry changed the day it ranked cities two weeks ago to enable more children to return to school this past Sunday, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein agreed to rank cities a day earlier this week.