Morocco has closed its airports for all incoming flights and Israel has closed its borders for all foreign nationals for two weeks to prevent the spread of the new Omicron COVID-19 variant.

All flights to Morocco were suspended from midnight on Monday, November 29 to December 13, 2021, according to a Tweet by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A NOTAM from the Moroccan civil aviation authority (Direction Générale de l'aviation Civile Maroc - DGAC) confirmed that all flights to or from Morocco were suspended except over-flights, technical stops, cargo flights, or repatriation flights from Morocco, with authorisation from authorities. Exceptional authorisation for the repatriation flights from Morocco must be obtained from the DGAC via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These flights must be carried out with shortened stopovers and the crew must remain on board.

This came after Morocco on November 26 already had banned access to all arrivals from Southern Africa following the UK's decision to place five Southern African countries on its controversial "red list" of countries from wher travel is restricted. It had...