Tel Aviv, Oct 21 (IANS): More than 2,600 Israeli medical residents and interns will return to work after a dispute over the 26-hour shifts was resolved, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz and the Medical Residents Organization of Israel (Mirsham) said in a joint statement.

The dispute was resolved since the Mirsham had accepted the Ministry's improved plan to shorten the lengthy shifts, reports Xinhua news agency.

On October 7, Israeli medical residents and interns resigned amid a dispute with the Health Ministry over the 26-hour shifts.

Claiming that they had been forced to work sleeplessly on the exhausting 26-hour shifts, the residents and interns rejected the ministry's original plan to ease their working stress.

According to the Ministry's new plan, starting in March 2022, the shifts at 10 hospitals in northern and southern Israel will be shortened.

Then in November, the plan will be expanded to internal medicine and emergency wards at two hospitals in central Israel.

Starting in March 2023, it will be extended to all internal medicine and emergency wards throughout Israel.

"I will work to ensure that by the end of 2025, the plan will be completed so that all shifts throughout the country will be shortened," Horowitz said.