Israel's nursing homes are 8,000 carers short — and can't import any.
Israel has roughly 10,000 carer posts across its licensed nursing homes (residential institutions for frail older people) and about 5,000 of them sit empty. The country's Population & Immigration Authority (the immigration regulator known as PIBA) issues foreign-carer visas only for one-on-one home care of a named elderly person, never for shift work inside a licensed facility. Operators cannot legally fill the rota. The over-75 population is projected to double from 400,000 to 800,000 within a decade.
01The pain
A nursing-home director in central Israel watches the same scene every Friday. Three carers cover a ward built for four. A resident needs a two-person lift; both free carers walk over. A second resident falls on the other side. Nobody sees it for nine minutes.
Israel runs about 200 licensed nursing homes (residential institutions for frail older people), with roughly 27,000 residents and 10,000 carer posts. About 5,000 sit empty. Dodo Mizrahi, chief executive of Danel (the country's largest care-workforce company, listed in Tel Aviv), puts the national shortage at 8,000. The over-75 population doubles from 400,000 to 800,000 within a decade.1
The pain is the law, not the wage. Israel's Population & Immigration Authority (PIBA) issues foreign-carer visas only for one-on-one home care of a named older person, never for shift work inside an institution.2 Many foreign carers went home after 7 October 2023; replacements are throttled by a 90-day PIBA hold and a roughly NIS 10,000 (~€2,500) annual employer levy.3 Nachi Katz, head of IGGUD KADIM (the federation of 200+ care facilities), has said the sector "cannot rely on Palestinians" either. Operators cannot legally fix this with more carers. The buy is equipment that removes carer hours from the rota — radar that watches for falls, lifts that move a resident with one helper, beds that page staff when somebody tries to get up.4
Further reading
- 1 Calcalist (Israeli business daily) — Hebrew coverage of Dodo Mizrahi (CEO of Danel) at the Calcalist Forecasts Conference: the carer shortage costs Israel NIS 25 billion a year, the over-75 population doubles from 400,000 to 800,000 in a decade, the state imports foreign workers "in a very cumbersome way" with high fees, the carer profession needs to become more prestigious because today it pays minimum wage: calcalist.co.il
- 2 State of Israel — Population & Immigration Authority foreign workers' rights booklet (English), describing the eldercare visa regime as one-on-one care of a named elderly individual under a personal employer, not shift work inside institutions: gov.il (PDF)
- 3 Ynet Health — Hebrew long-form on the post-7-October-2023 foreign-carer exodus, the Population & Immigration Authority response, the 90-day permit-hold rule from PIBA legal advisors, and Nachi Katz (CEO of IGGUD KADIM, the federation of 200+ Israeli care facilities) saying the sector "cannot rely on Palestinians" either: ynet.co.il
- 4 Globes (Israeli business daily) — Hebrew coverage of the Israeli eldercare labour squeeze, with operator-association commentary on the institutional vs home-care split in the visa regime and the rising demand for device-led care substitution: globes.co.il
02Who solves this today
Two self-marketing Israeli vendors cataloged below. We read each one's product or care-facility page in English; each one concretely addresses institutional eldercare and the carer-relief mechanism this page is about — radar-based fall detection, real-time alerts to staff, AI behavioural monitoring. Both are operating Israeli companies with their own service crews. Inclusion is not endorsement; it is a record of who currently markets a product page that matches this pain.
Inclusion here is not endorsement. We list companies that publicly market themselves as solving this pain on a product or care-facility page we have read. We do not vouch for results, pricing, fit, or contract terms.
Listed companies — manage your entry. If you are one of the providers above and anything here is wrong, missing, or out of date — or you'd rather not be listed — let us know. Removal is processed within 24 hours; corrections within 7 business days. We do not contact listed companies first; we publish what your own public marketing claims and respond when you reach out. Email contact@aikraft.com.
Operators discussing this
Israeli nursing-home operator chat lives in closed channels — members-only WhatsApp groups of the Union of Nursing Homes and the IGGUD KADIM facility-managers' list. The named-operator voices on this page come from the national business press, where the same operators speak on the record.
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«המחסור במטפלים הוא משמעותי... צריך להפוך את המטפל למקצוע יוקרתי יותר. השכר כיום למטפלים הוא שכר מינימום. זה אתגר מרכזי של ישראל המזדקנת.»
"The shortage of carers is significant… we need to turn the carer into a more prestigious profession. The wage today for a carer is the minimum wage. This is a central challenge of an ageing Israel." — Dodo Mizrahi, CEO of Danel (the largest care-workforce company in Israel), at the Calcalist Forecasts Conference.
Calcalist — "The carer shortage costs the state NIS 25 billion. Within a decade this number will double" — Israel's leading business daily; named-operator voice from the platform CEO who employs 32,000 care workers nationally.
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«אנחנו לא יכולים להסתמך על פלסטינאים — אמרנו את זה עוד לפני המלחמה.»
"We cannot rely on Palestinians — we said this even before the war." — Nachi Katz, CEO of IGGUD KADIM (a federation that represents 200+ Israeli care facilities, assisted-living homes and nursing institutions).
Ynet Health — long-form on the post-7-October-2023 foreign-carer exodus and the Population & Immigration Authority's 90-day permit hold — operator-federation voice on the record, on a national news platform, confirming the institutional carer-supply collapse from the demand side.
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