Poland will lift most of its coronavirus restrictions by the end of May, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Saturday warned Poles against any travel over the Christmas period, as he announced that most coronavirus restrictions would be extended but shops would re-open.

Eight people, including four children, were killed after a gas explosion destroyed a house in a ski resort in the south of Poland late Wednesday, local authorities said. 

Poland's governing right-wing populist party was poised to win a weekend election, latest results showed, and appeared on track to keep a parliamentary majority that would allow it to pursue a judicial reform agenda that has put it at loggerheads with the EU.

Poland's prime minister on Monday cancelled Warsaw's participation in a summit in Jerusalem, accusing Israel's foreign minister of "racist" comments about the actions of Poles during the Holocaust, in a row that has stoked outrage and soured relations. 

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on Thursday said her country would not follow Britain and leave the European Union, but criticized the European Commission for overstepping its brief.

A Polish motorist died Wednesday after crashing into a United States military truck on a motorway in western Poland, where large-scale NATO war games are underway.

"The car's driver died while the passenger was injured," said Wojciech Kaliszczak, a spokesman for the Anaconda-16 maneuvers involving 31,000 troops from 24 NATO and partner states.

Thousands of NATO troops hit the ground in Poland in a massive show of force Tuesday as the alliance launched its biggest war games in eastern Europe since the Cold War.

The 10-day Anaconda maneuvers are intended to shore up regional security in the face of the West's standoff with an increasingly assertive Russia.

Poland's rightwing Prime Minister Beata Szydlo vowed Friday that her government would never bow to any EU ultimatum and accused some members of the European Commission of trying to "destroy" the 28-member bloc.

Szydlo was responding to a Monday deadline set by the Commission for Poland to reverse a controversial overhaul of the country's top court that has set off a fiery dispute between Warsaw and Brussels.

Poland and Hungary have blasted Bill Clinton over a remark by the former U.S. president accusing the ex-communist EU and NATO countries of taking an authoritarian turn and wanting "Putin-like leadership".

"Poland and Hungary, two countries that would not be free but for the United States and the long Cold War have now decided that this democracy is too much trouble," Clinton said at an election rally last week for Democratic party presidential front-runner and spouse, Hillary Clinton.