Police Commissioner Danny Levi called an emergency meeting on Monday to instruct Chief Superintendent Haim Shmueli, head of the traffic department, to launch a nationwide, large-scale operation to combat the recent rise in road accidents and fatalities.
The plan includes bolstering police presence on the roads, stepping up enforcement, and expanding intelligence and operational efforts to catch drivers responsible for serious offenses.
“This is a national issue,” Levi said at the start of the meeting. He ordered that police presence be reinforced and that a significant, wide-ranging enforcement operation be launched immediately. In addition, he instructed authorities to tighten and strengthen cooperation with other agencies involved in combating road fatalities, including the National Road Safety Authority and the Transportation Ministry. “I want more presence, more enforcement, and a determined fight, especially against those criminal drivers and to eradicate life-endangering offenses,” he added.
A senior officer who attended the discussion said later that, “The commissioner was very determined, and his newest target is the handling of life-endangering offenses and criminality on the roads. We will soon see a major nationwide operation, and there will be noticeable active movement of police forces on the roads.”
2025 data shows a sharp rise in fatal traffic accidents
In 2025, 13,261 people were injured in road accidents, with 53.6%—or 7,118—hurt on urban roads. The data, published by the traffic safety group Or Yarok and based on Central Bureau of Statistics figures, was published alongside warnings about this trend.
Of those injured, 459 were killed, including 170 on urban roads. That accounts for 37% of all road accident fatalities in 2025—roughly one in every three deaths. The number of fatalities on urban roads last year was the highest in two decades.