Israeli Emergency Guide

Israeli Emergency Guide

Legal notice

This is a free information tool operated by an artificial-intelligence model. It explains how Israel's emergency services work and reproduces general public first-aid and Home Front Command guidance. Its output is produced automatically, without the involvement, review or approval of a physician, a paramedic or any licensed medical professional, and without review by Magen David Adom or Home Front Command.

The output is not a medical diagnosis, not a medical opinion, not a prescription and not treatment. The tool examines no one, does not interpret symptoms, does not decide how urgent a situation is, and does not determine any medication or dose. Those acts require a licensed clinician. The first-aid content is general public guidance and is not a substitute for a certified first-aid or resuscitation course. Where an operating authority changes its instructions, its instructions govern and this tool may be out of date. An artificial-intelligence model may err, omit data, or present a wrong conclusion.

In a real emergency, act on the instruction of the dispatcher or of Home Front Command, not on this tool. Call 101 for a medical emergency, 100 for police, 102 for fire and rescue. Where this tool and an official instruction differ, follow the official instruction. Do not use it to decide whether a situation is serious enough to call: if you are unsure, call. It is not a substitute for advice that takes account of each person's circumstances, and any use of its output is the sole responsibility of the user.

Instructions

Step 1: Emergency Phone Numbers

Israel has dedicated emergency numbers. Provide the correct number based on the situation.

112 is not a unified emergency number. It reaches Israel Police, exactly like 100, and does not route to MDA or Fire and Rescue. Its one advantage is that it dials from a locked or SIM-less handset. For a medical emergency, always dial 101.

Poison control: 04-7771900 is staffed 24/7 for acute poisoning only. There is no separate teratology number; the same line restricts pregnancy and breastfeeding medication questions to Sunday to Thursday, 09:00 to 14:00.

Step 1b: Reaching Emergency Services Without a Voice Call

Deaf and hard-of-hearing users, and anyone who cannot speak safely, have non-voice channels in.

Where a channel is not listed here it could not be confirmed at the operating authority's own site. Do not invent one.

Key facts about MDA, from its own published annual summary (2024 figures): 2024 was its 94th year; it runs 206 stations and dispatch points with over 2,650 emergency vehicles (MICUs, ambulances, motorcycles and rapid-response vehicles, not 2,650 ambulances); it has about 37,500 employees, volunteers and service personnel, some 15,000 of them teenagers; and the 101 centre took 3,644,612 calls in 2024, answering in under 3 seconds on average.

MDA publishes no average ambulance response time. Do not quote one. A figure like "about 8 minutes" is not in any MDA publication, and stating it to someone whose relative has just collapsed turns an unsourced number into a promise.

Step 2: When to Call MDA vs Visit Terem vs Go to ER

Decision guide:

1. If the person is unresponsive, not breathing, or has severe bleeding, call 101 immediately.
2. If the condition is painful but stable and does not require hospitalization, Terem is faster and cheaper.
3. If unsure, call 101. The MDA dispatcher will advise whether an ambulance is needed. Cost is never a reason not to call 101.

Red flags that override this table (any fever in an infant under 3 months, a non-blanching rash, neck stiffness, altered consciousness after a head injury, anticoagulant use, anaphylaxis), the medical rule-out that must precede treating a first "panic attack" as a mental-health call, what MDA transport costs and how the refund works, how Shabbat and chagim change availability, what happens in a mass-casualty event, and what an uninsured or unregistered person does, are all in references/triage-and-red-flags.md. Read it before routing anyone.

Step 3: Israel's Hospital System and Trauma Centers

Israel designates Level-1 trauma centres (מרכזי-על לטראומה) for the most severe injuries. Two more were upgraded in 2023, so do not tell a user there are five.

Level-1 trauma centres, north to south: Rambam (רמב"ם, Haifa), Ziv (זיו, Tzfat, upgraded 2023), Hadassah Ein Kerem (הדסה עין כרם) and Shaare Zedek (שערי צדק) in Jerusalem, Sheba Tel Hashomer (שיבא), Ichilov / Sourasky (איכילוב) in Tel Aviv, Rabin / Beilinson (רבין, Petach Tikva), Soroka (סורוקה, Beer Sheva) and Barzilai (ברזילי, Ashkelon, upgraded 2023).

Specialties, other major hospitals (Kaplan, Wolfson, Galilee Medical Center) and ER phone numbers are in references/hospital-directory.md.

Never assert that a hospital is the "only" Level-1 centre in its region. That was true of Soroka and Rambam before the 2023 upgrades and is no longer. When a user needs a trauma centre, call 101 and let MDA route the patient.

Step 4: ER Process (Chadar Miyun)

At a hospital ER (chadar miyun, חדר מיון):

Registration (present teudat zehut and kupat cholim card), then triage by a nurse, then a wait set by triage priority rather than arrival order, then examination and tests, then treatment and a discharge-or-admission decision. The wait is the only unpredictable stage and can run from half an hour to several hours.

Cost: the charge has TWO components, and the exemptions apply to them separately. The Ministry of Health splits an ER visit into אגרת מיון (the ER fee) and תשלום על הטיפול הניתן בחדר המיון (the cost of treatment given). A single "the ER costs X" answer cannot express this and will be wrong for most users. There are two distinct exemption tiers: full exemption (both components waived) and treatment-only exemption (the fee is still charged).

Current amounts, from the Ministry of Health tariff effective 1 July 2026:

The global tariff for an ER visit at a general hospital (code 5044) is 1,241 NIS, and the אגרת מלר"ד alone (code 00964) is 281 NIS. Other codes and the psychiatric-hospital tariffs are in the reference file. The tariff is revised several times a year (files exist for 1.4.2026 and 1.7.2026), so always state the effective date alongside the figure. Never quote a figure without its date.

references/er-payment-exemptions.md carries the complete official exemption table. Do not answer an exemption question from memory: the list is long and enumerated, and the commonly-assumed entries (an asthma attack, a poisoning, a dog bite) are not on it.

Three things agents get wrong most often:

• A patient who arrives with a medical letter or a טופס 17 and is not admitted is FULLY exempt. They do not pay a reduced fee. Telling them to expect a bill is telling them to pay money they do not owe.
• The night rule is 01:00 to 06:00, and it waives the treatment cost only, leaving the אגרת מיון. It is not a cheaper flat rate, and there is no 23:00 boundary in the regulations.
• An ER at a mental-health medical centre is free (חוזר מנכ"ל 06/2024), and casualties of hostile action have their costs borne by the National Insurance Institute.

Triage priority levels, in order of urgency: immediate (red), urgent (orange), less urgent (yellow), non-urgent (green). Israel uses this 4-level system.

Do not attach a number of minutes to any of these. No wait time is published or contractual, real waits routinely run to multiples of any figure an agent would guess, and the harm is not the number itself: a patient told to expect "one to two hours" has been given a reason not to go back to the desk when their symptoms change. This is the same rule that applies to MDA response times.

Tell the user this instead: if you feel worse while waiting, go straight back to the triage nurse and ask to be re-triaged. Triage is a snapshot, not a verdict, and re-triage on deterioration is a standard nursing-department duty.

Step 5: Terem Urgent Care Clinics

Terem (טרם) operates urgent care clinics for non-life-threatening emergencies.

Terem runs branches nationwide, from Nahariya in the north to Eilat in the south. Branch count and hours both change, so do not quote either from memory. Send the user to terem.com or Terem's information centre on 1-599-520-520 for the current list.

Use Terem for: closed fractures and sprains, cuts needing stitches, fever in a child over 3 months with no red flags, ear and eye infections with acute pain, minor burns, urinary tract infections. It has X-ray and basic labs, needs no referral, is accepted by all the kupot, costs less than an ER, and is usually quicker, though neither Terem nor a hospital publishes a wait figure and neither should be quoted one.

Step 6: Patient Rights During Emergencies

Under the Patient Rights Law (חוק זכויות החולה), a patient keeps the right to emergency care regardless of ability to pay, to informed consent, to refuse treatment, to privacy, to be accompanied, to access their own records, and to interpretation if they do not speak Hebrew. Where a patient is unconscious or cannot consent, staff may act under the pikuach nefesh emergency exception.

Read the scope carefully before repeating it: the duty covers emergency treatment in a medical emergency. It does not oblige non-urgent care, it does not prevent billing afterwards, and it does not stop a hospital asking a non-resident for a deposit before a non-emergency admission. Never phrase it as "they cannot bill you". The full list is in references/triage-and-red-flags.md.

Step 7: Mental Health Crisis Hotlines

When a user reports suicidal ideation, a panic attack, a trauma flashback or severe emotional distress, route them to a dedicated crisis line rather than defaulting to 101, unless there is also a medical emergency or an attempt in progress.

Before routing to a crisis line, rule out the medical causes. See the panic-attack rule in Step 2. An emotional-support chat line is the wrong destination for a cardiac event.

When to call which:

• Active attempt or imminent danger: 100 (police) and 101 (MDA) together
• Psychiatric ER (מלר"ד פסיכיאטרי): walk-in, 24/7, no referral needed, and free of charge. This is the missing rung between a chat line and the police, and most users do not know it exists. Anyone attending a mental-health medical centre's ER pays nothing (חוזר מנכ"ל 06/2024)
• Each of the four kupot cholim runs its own 24/7 mental-health line; the Ministry of Health's crisis-support page carries the current numbers. Check there rather than quoting a shortcode from memory
• Someone in danger who refuses all help: a district psychiatrist can issue an examination order (הוראת בדיקה) under the Treatment of Mentally Ill Patients Law. Route the caller to the district health office or to the police, not to a chat line
• Suicidal ideation, panic, anxiety, loneliness: ERAN 1201 (24/7) or SAHAR chat (24/7). Both are always open, so never tell a user that one of them is closed
• Sexual assault: 1202 (women) or 1203 (men), 24/7, or SMS 052-8361202
• Someone who cannot make a voice call: see the non-voice channels in Step 1b
• Combat, terror, October 7th trauma, PTSD flashbacks: NATAL *3362 (24/7)
• Child or adolescent in distress: ERAN 1201 (handles all ages)
• Online harm to a minor (cyberbullying, sextortion, online suicide threats): 105 (Child Online Protection Bureau)

What the person beside them should do while waiting: stay with them and do not leave them alone, remove the means (medicines, weapons, car keys), and keep talking. Asking directly about suicide does not plant the idea; it is the single most useful question available to a bystander.

Step 8: Wartime Emergencies (Iron Swords Era)

Emergency behaviour in wartime differs from peacetime:

When it is safe to leave the protected space (read this before answering any siren question):

There is no timer. Never give a user a number of minutes. Home Front Command publishes ONE merged guideline for rockets and missiles alike, and its rule is: היכנסו למרחב מוגן מיטבי בהתאם לפרק הזמן העומד לרשותכם והישארו בו עד לקבלת הנחיה מפורשת מפיקוד העורף (enter the optimal protected space and remain in it until an explicit instruction from Home Front Command). The same wording governs hostile-aircraft intrusion.

There is no separate rocket regime and no separate ballistic-missile regime. Any answer that splits them, or that attaches a duration to either, is describing guidance that no longer exists.

A successful interception is not a signal to step outside. Home Front Command answers this directly for hostile aircraft: asked whether one may leave after hearing an explosion, the published answer is לא. יש לשהות במרחב המוגן עד לקבלת הנחיה מפורשת המאפשרת לצאת.

Where a 10-minute figure does still appear, and why it does not apply here. The only current Home Front Command guideline containing "10 minutes" is the siren-system disruption scenario (שיבושים במערך הצופרים): when the sirens themselves are malfunctioning and the alert arrives through the app instead, the instruction is to enter the protected space and stay למשך 10 דקות. That is a different scenario with a different rule. Carrying that number over to an ordinary rocket alert is the specific error this section exists to prevent, and it can send someone outside under an active threat.

Key tools: the official Home Front Command app (real-time alerts, shelter guidance, per-locality timers, iOS and Android); community "Tzeva Adom" apps, which mirror official alerts but are unofficial and must be corroborated; and 104, the Home Front Command information hotline, which is not a medical emergency line.

Step 9: Blood Donation Through MDA

MDA Blood Services manages Israel's blood supply. A first donation is for ages 18 to 60 (17-18 with parental consent), weight over 50 kg, with at least 3 months since the last donation; over 60 for a first donation or over 65 for a repeat needs the treating physician's approval renewed annually and a fixed donation site. Book through MDA Blood Services on 03-5300400 or hatramot_dam@mda.org.il.

Never tell a user to call 101 to book a blood donation. 101 is the ambulance dispatch line.

Full eligibility rules, exclusions and the donation process are in references/blood-donation.md.

Examples

Example 1: Someone Collapses in the Street

User says: "Someone just collapsed near me and isn't responding. What do I do?"

Call 101 immediately, on speakerphone, and give the exact location (street name, landmark, building). Check whether they are breathing; the dispatcher will talk you through CPR. Do not move them unless they are in immediate danger. Stay on the line until the ambulance arrives, and do not give the caller an estimated arrival time: MDA publishes none, and a guessed number changes what a frightened caller decides to do. Ask the dispatcher about a nearby AED; the MDA app and the Life Guardians network can locate one and dispatch a volunteer responder.

Example 2: Child Has a High Fever on Shabbat

User says: "My 3-year-old has a fever of 39.5 and it's Friday night. Where do I go?"

At 3 years old with no red flags, Terem is the right destination, and the Jerusalem Romema branch is open on Shabbat. Bring the child's teudat zehut and kupat cholim card. Call 101 instead if the child has difficulty breathing, is lethargic, has a non-blanching rash or a stiff neck. Change the answer entirely if the child is under 3 months: any fever at that age is a hospital ER presentation, not a Terem one. Pikuach nefesh overrides Shabbat, so do not let an observant caller hesitate over calling.

Example 3: Tourist Breaks an Arm

User says: "I'm a tourist in Tel Aviv and I think I broke my arm. What should I do?"

If the bone is not protruding and the bleeding is controlled, Terem or a hospital ER both work; in Tel Aviv, Ichilov is central and is itself a Level-1 trauma centre. Bring the passport and the travel-insurance documents. The global ER tariff is 1,241 NIS as of 1 July 2026 for a self-referral with no exemption, and a tourist is not a kupat cholim member, so the exemption tiers do not apply and non-residents are billed at higher rates. Emergency treatment must be given regardless of insurance status, but the bill still follows and that duty does not extend to non-urgent care.

Bundled Resources

References

• references/oref-scenarios.md -- Home Front Command's full published scenario set, quoted verbatim: rockets and missiles, hostile aircraft, terrorist infiltration, hazardous materials, tsunami, prolonged stay, siren-system disruption, plus the protection-time rules and the cross-scenario overrides. Read this for any siren, shelter or wartime question.
• references/first-aid-basics.md -- CPR (adult, child, infant), AED, anaphylaxis, stroke, severe bleeding and tourniquets, choking, recovery position, hypoglycaemia, seizures, carbon monoxide, drowning, burns, heatstroke, snake bite, scorpion sting, jellyfish and earthquake, with Israeli-specific hazards throughout.
• references/triage-and-red-flags.md -- The red flags that override the routing table, the medical rule-out before treating a first panic attack as a mental-health call, ambulance charges, Shabbat and chagim, mass-casualty conduct, patient rights, and what an uninsured or unregistered person does.
• references/er-payment-exemptions.md -- The complete Ministry of Health ER exemption table, both tiers, the tariff codes and amounts, and the conditions users wrongly assume are exempt.
• references/hospital-directory.md -- Israeli hospitals by region, the Level-1 trauma centres, ER phone numbers and specialties.
• references/blood-donation.md -- MDA donor eligibility, exclusions and booking channels.

Recommended MCP Servers

Reference Links

Gotchas

• Agents default to US emergency numbers (911) and to US or EU first-aid protocols. Israel uses 101 (MDA), 100 (police), 102 (fire), and Home Front Command doctrine has no foreign equivalent at all. Quote the Israeli source or say you cannot confirm; never substitute a foreign default.
• There is no shelter exit timer. Home Front Command publishes one merged rocket-and-missile guideline whose rule is to stay until an explicit instruction arrives. The only guideline containing "10 minutes" is siren-system disruption, a different scenario. Agents reach for the 10-minute figure by default, and it is the highest-consequence error this skill can make.
• 112 is NOT a unified emergency number. It reaches Israel Police, the same as 100, and does not route to MDA or Fire. Its one advantage is that it dials from a locked or SIM-less handset. Never send a medical emergency to 112.
• Never quote a wait time or a response time. Not MDA's, not ER triage, not Terem's. None is published, and a number given to a waiting patient becomes a reason not to go back to the triage desk when they deteriorate.
• ER payment has TWO components (the אגרת מיון and the treatment cost) and the exemptions apply to them separately, so a single "the ER costs X" answer is wrong for most users. Agents also invent exemptions: an asthma attack, a poisoning and a dog bite are all commonly assumed to be exempt and none of them is. Read references/er-payment-exemptions.md.
• Fever in an infant under 3 months is never a Terem case. Agents route it there because the routing table says "high fever in children".
• Allergic swelling of the face or throat is anaphylaxis, which means adrenaline into the thigh and then 101, not a drive to an ER. Agents consistently under-triage it.
• SAHAR is 24/7 and should never be described as closed; the roughly 6-hours-a-day limit applies to its Arabic chat, not the Hebrew one. NATAL's current shortcode is *3362.
• Blood donation is booked on 03-5300400, not on 101. Sending a donor to the ambulance dispatch line ties up an emergency channel.
• Hospital names have multiple forms: "Ichilov", "Sourasky Medical Center" and "Tel Aviv Medical Center" are one institution. Israel's ER triage is a 4-level system (red, orange, yellow, green), not the 5-level system used in some other countries.

Troubleshooting

Error: "I called 101 but no one answers in English"

Cause: MDA dispatchers primarily speak Hebrew; English availability varies by region and time. Solution: Stay on 101. Say "English" or "Anglit" (אנגלית) clearly and wait. Do NOT hang up and dial 112 hoping for an English operator: 112 reaches Israel Police, not MDA, and moves a medical call further from the people who can help. Handing the phone to a nearby Hebrew speaker is faster than redialling. The 052-7000101 SMS/WhatsApp line is designated for the hearing-impaired, not a general English channel.

Error: "The ER is charging me even though I came by ambulance"

Cause: The MDA-transport exemption is narrower than people assume. The Ministry of Health's full exemption covers evacuation from the street or another public place following a sudden event, not every ambulance ride, and least of all a booked transfer from home. Solution: Keep the MDA documentation and take it, with the discharge summary and the receipt, to your kupah. If the visit is found medically justified the treatment cost is waived retroactively even where no listed exemption applied.

Error: "I don't know which kupat cholim I belong to"

Cause: Many residents, especially new olim, are unsure of their health fund registration. Solution: Call Bituach Leumi on *6050, or visit any kupat cholim branch with your teudat zehut. In a medical emergency you will be treated regardless, though you may still be billed.