I fell and was injured in an Israeli hotel while visiting from Australia. Can I claim from home?

Visitors often assume Israel treats every injury the way it treats a car crash. It does not. A road accident gives you no-fault compensation by statute, while a fall in a hotel lobby, a shopping centre or a rented apartment is an ordinary negligence claim: Sections 35 and 36 of the Civil Wrongs Ordinance [New Version] impose a duty of care on whoever occupies the premises, and you have to prove it was breached.

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Detailed Answer

Section 35 defines negligence and Section 36 fixes who owes the duty, and Israeli courts have applied it to occupiers since the leading authority in Vaknin in the early 1980s, holding that both the owner and the person in possession owe visitors a duty not to be careless about the state of the premises. What that means in a real file is evidence about the specific hazard: the wet floor with no sign, the unlit step, the loose tile that maintenance logged twice and never fixed. Israeli courts routinely reduce damages for contributory negligence, and a claimant who was looking at a phone or wearing unsuitable shoes should expect a deduction rather than a defeat. Where the cause of the accident is genuinely within the defendant's knowledge and not yours, Section 41 of the Ordinance can shift the evidential burden, which is often the difference in a case where nobody can say why a floor was wet. Damages cover pain and suffering, loss of earnings, medical expenses and future care, and because a tourist is outside the Israeli national insurance system there is no parallel benefit stream to reduce the claim in the way there would be for an Israeli resident. The limitation period is seven years under the Prescription Law 5718-1958, generous by Australian standards and still routinely missed.

Running this from Australia is workable and needs planning in three areas. Evidence perishes fastest: hotel CCTV is often overwritten within weeks, so a lawyer's preservation letter in the first days is worth more than anything filed later. Medical proof must be Israeli or reconciled with Israeli practice, because damages are assessed on medical opinions in the Israeli format and an Australian specialist report will usually need an Israeli expert to translate it into a disability percentage the court works with. And a claimant living outside Israel with no assets there will normally face an application to put up security for the defendant's costs before the case proceeds, which we cover in our answer on security for costs against a foreign claimant in an Israeli court. Practical point on funding: your Australian travel insurer may have already paid the hospital and will want to be repaid out of any Israeli recovery, so tell your Israeli lawyer about the policy at the start rather than at settlement.

In Practice: Occupier liability rests on Sections 35 and 36 of the Civil Wrongs Ordinance [New Version], with Section 41 capable of shifting the burden where the cause of the accident lies within the defendant's knowledge, and the Prescription Law 5718-1958 allows seven years to sue. A claim up to NIS 2,500,000 is heard in the Magistrates Court, where the fee is 2.5% of the sum claimed with a floor near NIS 773, half payable on filing and the balance up to 20 days before the hearing. A contested file with expert medical evidence commonly runs two to three years from filing to judgment.

When to Consult a Lawyer

• The accident happened more than a few weeks ago and no one has asked the hotel or centre to preserve its CCTV and incident report, since those documents decide most of these cases and disappear on a retention cycle
• Your injuries are still developing or surgery is planned, because the claim should be quantified on a settled prognosis and filing too early usually undersells future care and lost earnings
• Your travel insurer has paid Israeli hospital bills and is asserting a right of recovery, which needs handling alongside the Israeli claim rather than after it settles

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Speak With an Israeli Attorney

A fall claim in Israel is won on early evidence and a properly built medical file, both of which are hard to organise from Melbourne without local help. We secure the footage and incident records, instruct the Israeli medical experts and run the claim while you stay home.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.