What are the penalties for breaking occupational safety rules in Israel?

Breaches of Israeli OSH law are criminal offences. Under the Work Safety Ordinance an offence with no specific penalty carries up to six months' imprisonment or a fine, or up to one year where the breach could cause death or bodily injury, plus additional penalties for each day it continues. Ignoring an inspector's improvement order, safety order or construction stop order carries its own penalties, company officers can be prosecuted personally, and many offences can be settled by a fixed administrative fine.

Short answer

• General penalty (Ordinance s. 225): up to 6 months' imprisonment or a fine; up to 1 year or a higher fine if the offence could cause death or bodily injury; daily imprisonment or fine for continuing offences.
• Each worker counts: where people are employed in breach, it is a separate violation for each worker (s. 224).
• Improvement order not complied with: up to 6 months' imprisonment or a fine, plus a daily fine (Labour Inspection Law s. 8C).
• Safety order not complied with: imprisonment of up to 1 year or a fine, plus a daily fine (s. 8).
• Construction stop order breached: up to 2 years' imprisonment or a fine at the level of section 61(a)(3) of the Penal Law, plus a daily fine; strict liability (s. 8(b1)).
• Personal liability: directors, partners and responsible officers are liable for corporate offences unless they prove lack of knowledge and reasonable steps.
• Administrative fines: fixed fines for listed offences, doubled for a repeat offence.
• Monetary sanctions: listed construction safety breaches (work surfaces, work at height, cranes and lifting, excavation and demolition, site safety organisation) can attract a monetary sanction (עיצום כספי) under the Increased Enforcement of Labour Laws Law 5772-2011.

How enforcement escalates

Regional labour inspectors normally start with orders rather than prosecution:

1. Improvement order (צו שיפור): the occupier must take the listed steps within a period of at least 14 days and report completion in writing within seven days after the deadline. The occupier may appeal to the regional labour court within seven days.
2. Safety order (צו בטיחות): where a machine, equipment, installation, substance, process or omission endangers life or health, the inspector may stop work or ban use until the danger is removed, or order specific measures. Except in urgent cases the occupier is heard first. The order may be enforced with police help.
3. Construction work stoppage order (צו הפסקת עבודה): after a death or life-threatening injury on a construction site, the site is closed for two working days, extendable by three days; notice is published on the Ministry's website.
4. Prosecution or administrative fine for the underlying breach, the failure to comply with an order, or the failure to notify an accident.

A safety committee recommendation that the employer ignores can also be turned into an inspector's order, and breaching that order is treated like breaching an improvement order.

Amounts and how they are set

The old amounts printed in the Ordinance and the 1954 Law are not the figures a court works with. Section 61(a) of the Penal Law 5737-1977 sets maximum fine bands by the length of the prison term attached to the offence and applies notwithstanding any other law, and section 61(c) caps the daily fine for continuing offences; the Minister of Justice may update the bands by order in line with the consumer price index (section 64). Newer instruments refer to the bands directly: the Safety Officers Regulations and the Training Regulations to section 61(a)(1), the construction stop order offence to section 61(a)(3). Separately, the Administrative Offences (Administrative Fine - Work Safety) Regulations 5756-1995 set fixed administrative fines per offence (for example for failure to notify an accident), doubled for a repeat offence. We could not open an official source that states the 2026 shekel amounts; check the current figures with the OSH Administration or legal counsel before quoting them.

In construction, the OSH Administration also uses monetary sanctions under the Increased Enforcement of Labour Laws Law, which are imposed without a court case. Its 2023 activity report counts 560 sanctions imposed up to 7 October 2023 and 3,340 sanctions worth about NIS 133 million published on its website.

Civil and other consequences

Criminal penalties do not exclude civil liability: the Labour Inspection Law states that safety orders and their enforcement do not release anyone from criminal or civil liability under other law. Injured workers receive work-injury benefits from the National Insurance Institute, and serious construction accidents are reported by the chief labour inspector to the Registrar of Contractors in the Ministry of Construction and Housing.

Example: A contractor keeps working on a scaffold area that an inspector banned by safety order. The contractor commits a separate offence of breaching the order on top of the scaffold breach, each worker exposed counts as a separate violation, the managing director may be prosecuted personally, and the police may help enforce the order.

Common mistakes

• Assuming only the company is liable. Directors and officers are personally liable unless they prove they did not know and took reasonable steps.
• Treating an improvement order as advice. Non-compliance is an offence with daily fines.
• Quoting the amounts printed in the 1970 Ordinance. Court fines follow the Penal Law bands, which are updated by order; verify the current figures.

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• Occupational safety and health in Israel: law, authorities and employer duties
• What is the main occupational safety and health law in Israel and who enforces it?
• How and within what time must a workplace accident be reported in Israel?
• Labour inspection, suspension of work and fines in Türkiye

Standards and further reading

• Work Safety Ordinance [New Version] 5730-1970, sections 219 to 237, official gazette text, Knesset, as amended.
• Labour Inspection (Organisation) Law 5714-1954, sections 6 to 8C and 36; section 6A added by Amendment No. 10, 2016.
• Administrative Offences (Administrative Fine - Work Safety) Regulations 5756-1995.
• Increased Enforcement of Labour Laws Law 5772-2011, second schedule (work safety items).
• Penal Law 5737-1977, sections 61 and 64 (fine bands and their updating).
• Ministry of Labour, OSH Administration, activity report 2023 (Hebrew).

This article is general occupational safety and health information prepared by the excodex editorial team. It does not replace the applicable legislation, standards, manufacturers' instructions or the assessment of a competent OSH professional or occupational physician.