Israel's State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman released a special report on Sunday regarding the country's preparedness for its aging population. The report indicated that Israel lacks a coordinated national policy to address the challenges of its rapidly increasing older demographic.

The number of Israelis aged 65 and over is projected to increase from approximately 1.3 million to two million by 2050. Englman stated, "Aging of the population is one of the central challenges facing the State of Israel." He also said, "Providing an appropriate response to the elderly population is a moral and value-based obligation."

Englman's report found that responsibility for older Israelis is divided among various entities, including the Health Ministry, Welfare Ministry, Social Equality Ministry, health funds, and the National Insurance Institute. No single body currently possesses the authority, budget, or responsibility to ensure cooperation between these agencies. Israel has no funded multi-year national plan on aging, no empowered coordinating body, and few measurable targets, despite the government identifying aging as a major long-term challenge in 2015.

Approximately 70% of government bodies engaged with aging-related issues reported that cooperation between relevant institutions was only moderate or worse, and about 90% stated that information-sharing was inadequate. None of the four central policy goals reviewed by the comptroller was fully implemented.

Annual National Insurance Institute spending on long-term care increased from NIS 7 billion before a 2018 reform to NIS 21 billion in 2025. The number of long-term care recipients also rose during this period, from about 180,000 to 392,000, and the share of retirement-age Israelis receiving long-term care benefits grew from about 16% to 30%. Englman stated that the 2018 reform brought forward the year the National Insurance Institute fund will be depleted by more than six years, to 2035. This would necessitate additional state financing to meet legal obligations.

Israel is the only OECD country that systematically conducts long-term care dependency assessments without face-to-face meetings, with only about 1% of assessments conducted in person at an individual's home. Applications assessed via medical documents were approved at a rate 16 percentage points higher than those with in-person visits. The comptroller estimated that higher care level assignments could generate NIS 9.5 billion in additional annual costs.

The National Insurance Institute does not conduct annual home monitoring for all recipients of cash benefits and has not established a clear supervision procedure for family caregivers. The number of geriatric hospital beds per 1,000 Israelis aged 75 and over decreased by 16% between 2020 and 2023, while the number of geriatricians in Israel remained largely unchanged during the same period. Englman stated, "Today, Israel has no organized government policy for preparing citizens for retirement."

Approximately 77% of respondents aged 60 to 75 indicated they had not participated in retirement preparation. In 2025, employment among Israeli women aged 67 to 74 stood at 22.3%, and for men in the same age group, it was 35.4%.

No independent assessment was available for this report.