RAMALLAH, West Bank – The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced Thursday that it has identified its first three cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in the occupied West Bank.

Ministry spokesman Kamal al-Shakrah said the three people lived in different towns in the territory and had recently returned from overseas. He did not say which countries they had visited.

In response to the discovery, the ministry said medical teams were tracking down and testing those who had recently come into contact with the three people.

Israel, which captured the West Bank in the Middle East War in 1967, controls movement into and out of the West Bank.

Israel’s health ministry has so far identified at least 67 cases of the omicron variant and has imposed strict travel restrictions, including a ban for most foreign tourists from entering the country.

Authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories that are home to some 4.8 million Palestinians, have reported 4,858 deaths from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

About 2.5 million Palestinians in the two territories received a dose of Pfizer / BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V or Sinopharm vaccine, while just over 2.1 million Palestinians received a second dose.