One in four adults in Israel smokes, and use of electronic cigarettes among youth is on the rise, according to the health minister’s 2025 report on smoking in Israel, which was submitted to the Knesset on Monday. The report details the scale of smoking in Israel and presents a worrying picture of teen smoking.
Israel’s smoking rate in 2025 stands at 23.1% of the adult population, the report found. It also said that in 2022, some 12,386 deaths in Israel could be attributed to smoking, accounting for about 23% of all deaths in the country. Of these, 894 deaths were attributed to secondhand smoke.
The report further highlights the extent of exposure to secondhand smoke. According to the data, 28.9% of Israel’s Jewish population and 48.5% of its Arab population are exposed to secondhand smoke.
Use of electronic cigarettes among teenagers
One of the report’s most prominent findings concerns the use of electronic cigarettes among teenagers. Some 20% of students in Israel reported having tried an electronic cigarette, compared with about 19% who had tried regular cigarettes. For the first time, the share of elementary-school-age students who have tried electronic cigarettes is higher than the share who have tried regular cigarettes.
In addition, some 17% of elementary-school-age children reported smoking an electronic cigarette at least once during the past month. The report also shows that between 2023 and 2025, experimentation with electronic cigarettes increased among Jewish and Arab boys, as well as among Arab girls.
The data also show that 46.2% of adult Arab men smoke, twice the smoking rate in the general population.
The report reviews steps advanced by the Health Ministry over the past year, including the promotion of graphic warnings on smoking products, stronger oversight and enforcement mechanisms, expanded smoking cessation services, the integration of smoking indicators into the national indicators program, and broader monitoring and measurement tools in the field.
Graphic warning labels will become mandatory on smoking products
For the first time, the report includes information from the National Program for Quality Indicators in Community Healthcare in Israel, offering a broader picture of smoking patterns, as well as the identification, documentation, and treatment measures carried out by the health funds.
As part of the new measures, graphic warning labels will become mandatory on smoking products beginning in August 2026. According to regulations issued by the Health Ministry, graphic warnings will be added to existing written warnings and will appear on a variety of smoking products. The regulations set a uniform size of 75% of the package area for all products.
Health Minister Haim Katz said, “Smoking continues to be one of the significant risk factors for public health. The data in the report require us to continue acting decisively to prevent the exposure of children and teenagers to smoking products, while strengthening prevention, enforcement, and public information measures.”
Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman Tov said: “The data in the report demonstrate that smoking continues to be one of the significant causes of morbidity and mortality in Israel, especially among children and teenagers. While the use of electronic cigarettes among young people is rising worryingly and the age of exposure to smoking and nicotine products continues to fall, significant legislative measures initiated by the Health Ministry to protect the public are still not being advanced in the Finance Committee.”
Head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health Division Prof. Sigal Sadetsky added: “The ongoing state of emergency in Israel over the past seven years may lead to choosing risky behaviors such as smoking as a way of coping with stress and anxiety.”