A special Knesset session on potentially reinstating coronavirus safety measures at Ben-Gurion International Airport turns into a showdown between the current and former prime ministers.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged barbs Monday during a special Knesset session on the COVID resurgence, accusing each other's respective governments of mishandling the pandemic in Israel.

Bennett appeared before the plenum after the opposition, which labeled the emergency session "The Ben-Gurion Airport fiasco," secured the signatures of 40 lawmakers to force the prime minister to publicly debate potentially reinstating coronavirus measures at Israel's main international gateway, which has been struggling for weeks with overcrowding and testing arrivals.

The prime minister also accused his predecessor of neglecting the tensions with the Gaza Strip, mismanaging the Hezbollah threat, and undermining ties with Jordan.

In his own speech, Netanyahu hit back at Bennett, blaming him for the failure to prevent the spread of the delta variant in Israel, leading to a spike in morbidity.

Hitting back at Bennett's accusations of inaction during the pandemic, Netanyahu said: "We worked around the clock to bring millions of vaccines to Israel while you gave interviews to every channel and said that the vaccines wouldn't arrive, and that we didn't need them at all, and called to open up everything.

"Thanks to our actions, we brought Israel back to life, but because of your failure, we have to sit with masks in every closed space, and you can't even accomplish that."