Illegal Drug Trade in Israel

Israel has been characterized by its own authorities as a country with significant domestic demand for illegal drugs.[5] A 2017 Israeli government risk assessment, drawing on an estimate from the Israel Anti-Drug and Alcohol Authority, reported that the domestic drug market had been valued at more than NIS 4 billion in preceding years.[2] An earlier estimate, cited in a 2011 U.S. State Department report, put the narcotics-market turnover at NIS 7 billion (then approximately US$1.95 billion) based on 2009 data.[6]

The range of substances available has historically been broad. For 2003, the Israeli National Police characterized the market as having high demand across nearly all sectors of society, estimating annual consumption of 100 tons of marijuana, 20 tons of hashish, 20 million ecstasy tablets, 4 tons of heroin, 3 tons of cocaine, and hundreds of thousands of LSD blotters.[7] These are historical estimates and should not be read as present-day market levels, but they illustrate the scale of demand that enforcement agencies have long confronted.

Marijuana addiction in Israel increased by nearly 50 percent between 2018 and 2022, according to figures cited in a 2023 Combating Terrorism Center study, which also references the 2022 World Drug Report's finding of overall growth in drug consumption and relapses after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] Israel's 2021 National Risk Assessment described drug-trade activity as ranging from individual offenders to trafficking gangs and organized-crime groups, rated the money-laundering risk associated with drug-trade proceeds at 4.7 out of 5, and assessed that risk as increasing.[3]

Online drug trafficking and postal shipments from abroad grew notably during the COVID-19 period. The same 2021 assessment reported that virtual assets and other advanced payment methods were used in these transactions, and that Israeli police opened thousands of drug-trafficking cases annually.[3] The trade's high profitability was identified as a key driver attracting new offenders and strengthening organized-crime groups.

Drug trafficking through the territory that is now Israel has roots in the interwar period. After international anti-drug conventions and local decrees disrupted Egypt's traditional hashish supply from Greece, Egypt turned to sources in Lebanon and Syria. Mandatory Palestine — situated between those suppliers and Egypt — was drawn into extensive hashish movements across its territory for the first time, becoming both a transit corridor and, increasingly, a consumer market.[8]

Hashish traffickers traveling through Mandatory Palestine toward Egypt sold portions of their supply locally, fueling a sharp rise in hashish use among the territory's urban working-class Arab population. Academic scholarship argues that Palestine's emerging drug culture depended substantially on regional forces beyond local control rather than on indigenous demand alone.[8] A broader social history of hashish in Mandatory Palestine describes the territory as a major regional transit point and consumer market following the post-World War I reorganization of the Middle East, and concludes that British and French authorities alike failed to contain the illicit trade.[9]

Jewish public attitudes toward hashish during the same period were shaped by fears of cultural assimilation into the Levant and by associations linking the drug to what contemporaries called "backwardness." These attitudes persisted into the early Israeli state period, even as some Mizrahi Jews — those from Arab and Muslim-majority countries — arrived with prior hashish experience or began using it in Israel in circumstances linked to socio-ethnic marginalization. Estimates suggest that use in the 1950s and much of the 1960s was confined to a few thousand Mizrahi Jews.[10]

By the 1960s, drug use had become a measurable social phenomenon, though enforcement actions remained limited. Historical records show that convictions for Dangerous Drug Law offenses were rare in Israel's early decades — roughly 0.1 per thousand among Jews and 0.2 per thousand among Arabs, with 133 cases among Jews in 1964 and 135 in 1965. Most cases involved immigrants from North Africa, Asia, and the Levant who had acquired drug habits in their countries of origin.[11] By the time of the 1967 War, the drug trade had become a significant point of contention in the Arab–Israeli conflict, and use had spread more broadly.[9]

Most drugs consumed in Israel are smuggled from abroad across its land borders, by sea, or through international mail and courier services.[5] Publicly documented smuggling cases are concentrated on the borders with Egypt and Jordan, while Lebanon and Syria appear less frequently in the Combating Terrorism Center's mixed weapons-and-drugs dataset.[1]

The Egyptian border is a principal route for narcotics. Of 52 documented smuggling attempts in the Egypt–Israel border sector in one comprehensive study, 49 involved drugs.[1] Marijuana and hashish — typically cultivated in Sinai and transported by Bedouin networks — are the most common commodities, while cocaine and heroin appear with less frequency.[1] Israeli authorities seized five tons of hashish, cocaine, and other drugs valued at approximately $57 million in 2022, and between November 2022 and May 2023 alone, authorities identified or disrupted 18 known attempts on that border and seized more than 717 kilograms of drugs.[1] A CTech analysis estimated the combined value of seized drugs and drug-smuggling activity along the Egyptian border at approximately NIS 494 million across 2020–2022: about NIS 150 million in 2020, NIS 209 million in 2021, and NIS 135 million in 2022.[12]

The Jordanian border serves as a transit route for heroin, hashish, and cocaine entering Israel. In September 2003, police seized 34 kilograms of heroin and 23 kilograms of cocaine in a single operation involving goods smuggled from Jordan.[7] A 2013 U.S. State Department report additionally noted the use of sea shipments and international mail, and described joint U.S.–Israeli investigations of couriers on flights from South America into Ben Gurion Airport.[5] In April 2018, Israel Tax Authority customs dog-handlers seized 38 international-mail parcels containing cannabis products, cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine, ecstasy tablets, designer drugs, and LSD at Ben Gurion Airport in a single day; most parcels had been sent from the Netherlands, with the remainder routed through a similar corridor via Spain.[13]

The Lebanese and Syrian borders account for a smaller volume of detected attempts. An Institute for National Security Studies analysis describes the Captagon trade — centered on production in Syria and Lebanon — as largely blocked from entering Israel by IDF border presence, with most smuggling attempts foiled.[14] That assessment does not provide seizure totals for those borders.[14]

The Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty's Annex III established a formal bilateral framework for countering drug smuggling, calling for information exchange on trafficking, dealers, and crime statistics; periodic coordination by drug-law-enforcement officers; cooperation on investigations and indictments; controlled deliveries; and information-sharing about any discovered drug-producing laboratories.[15]

Smuggling operations along Israel's borders employ a range of documented methods, and their operators are described by Israeli officials as methodical and patient. As one official cited in a Combating Terrorism Center report put it, "Smugglers don't have much, but they do have time and patience" — a reference to how operators monitor security patterns, watch patrol schedules, and wait for optimal crossing windows before attempting a run.[1]

Along the Egyptian border, spotters survey patrols and surveillance systems before a smuggling attempt begins. Reported crossing techniques include throwing bags of contraband over the border fence, using ladders, or cutting openings in the fence to pass goods between counterparts waiting on each side — a technique described by Israeli officials as an "ATM operation."[1] In the Negev, the adjacent flat terrain and Sinai's drug cultivation combine to facilitate exchanges involving shepherds and other individuals on both sides of the fence.[12]

Drone-enabled smuggling has become increasingly documented. An October 2025 analysis reported that the IDF's Paran Brigade recorded 384 drone-breach incidents between July 16 and August 25, 2025, alongside hundreds of additional sightings along the Egyptian border, but it did not state how many, if any, involved drugs.[16] On the Jordanian border, in July 2025, Border Police and IDF personnel seized several drones and two vehicles after suspects allegedly attempted to move more than 17 kilograms of hashish across the southern border using unmanned aircraft.[17]

Organized smuggling networks recruit multiple specialized roles — couriers, drivers, lookouts, scouts, and operations officers — into structured operations.[1] Israeli officials cited in the CTC study said that smugglers sometimes recruit financially vulnerable Bedouin in the Negev for these roles, including individuals with military service or access to security-related information.[1] Beyond land borders, the 2017 Israeli national risk assessment pointed to growing use of the internet for drug trafficking and noted land-border smuggling, postal shipments, and airport couriers as enforcement challenges.[2]

Synthetic or "kiosk" drugs — new psychoactive substances marketed as legal alternatives — represent another channel. These were sold under brand names including "Mr. Nice Guy," "Spice," "Pinocchio," "Spiderman," and "Mabsuton" at kiosks, with their low cost, attractive packaging, and apparent legal status facilitating spread among teenagers and young people. The Israel Anti-Drug Authority reports that herbal material was sprayed with synthetic cannabinoid chemicals developed in illegal laboratories without legal or medical oversight.[18]

Israeli criminal organizations have engaged in both domestic and international drug trafficking. The Israeli government's 2017 national risk assessment describes these organizations as active in drug trafficking alongside arms trafficking, gambling, extortion, fraud, and money laundering, and projects that their international activities were expected to increase.[2] Criminal groups operating in Israel have been described as home-grown or as having ties to the former Soviet Union, the United States, or the European Union.[19]

In the early 2000s, Israeli trafficking networks became notably prominent in international ecstasy distribution. A 2001 U.S. State Department report described Israeli trafficking rings as increasingly involved in moving ecstasy from the Netherlands to the United States, as well as in cocaine trafficking.[20] Three strategic planning meetings in 2001 — involving U.S. DEA, Israeli police, U.S. Customs, and European security officials — focused on this network and resulted in more than two dozen arrests.[20] A 2000 industry report attributed to Israeli police intelligence said that more than 1.5 million ecstasy pills were seized from people possessing Israeli citizenship in 1999 alone, with a supply chain extending from Dutch laboratories to sales at trance parties, and with a considerable portion of profits allegedly laundered through Israeli bank accounts.[21]

The same 2001 State Department report described Operation Sinbad, conducted with Israeli Customs cooperation, in which authorities seized 3.5 tons of hashish in transit from Morocco to Spain — a shipment not described as bound for Israel.[20] South American cocaine routes also attracted Israeli enforcement attention; a 2013 U.S. State Department report noted joint U.S.–Israeli investigations of couriers on flights from South America into Ben Gurion Airport, as well as investigations into mephedrone trafficking from Israel to the United States.[5]

In 2019, the Telegrass network — an online cannabis marketplace operating through the encrypted messaging app Telegram — was dismantled in a major operation. Police arrested 42 suspected senior figures in Israel, the United States, Ukraine, and Germany following a months-long undercover investigation supported by the State Attorney's Office's cyber and international-affairs departments.[22][23] Police alleged that the network had thousands of dealers and tens of thousands of users, including minors, and had processed dozens of tons of drugs worth hundreds of millions of shekels.[22] Alleged offenses included drug trafficking, running or funding a criminal organization, money laundering, and tax offenses; employees were reportedly paid in cash, Bitcoin, or drugs.[22][23] A 2023 Jerusalem Police investigation targeted an alleged attempt to import 700 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia at a price of $26,000 per kilogram; the drugs were never transported to Israel, and three suspects — an Israeli, a Spaniard, and a Moroccan — were charged with attempted importation and possession with intent to distribute.[24]

While most drugs consumed in Israel are imported, domestic marijuana cultivation has grown as an additional supply channel. Organized criminal groups have cultivated marijuana in greenhouses and in trenches dug in areas designated as IDF live-fire zones in the Negev, where the terrain and restricted access reduce the likelihood of detection.[1] In 2020, Border Police discovered 27,500 marijuana plants growing near an IDF training base, with the plants camouflaged using beige nets in trenches within the live-fire zone.[1]

The 2011 U.S. State Department report observed that increased seizures and street-level enforcement had pushed up street prices for imported drugs, which in turn encouraged the growth of hydroponic marijuana production inside Israel and a partial shift by organized crime toward counterfeit, illegal "lifestyle," and prescription drugs.[6] Israel's 2021 National Risk Assessment similarly described cannabis as principally domestically cultivated, with most other drug types smuggled from abroad.[3]

Israel's primary legal instrument governing narcotics is the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, which covers export, import, trade, supply, brokering, and transport at border crossings.[2] The ordinance initially listed specific chemical substances, a design that allowed slightly altered compounds to evade control as new synthetic drugs appeared on the market.[18]

In response to the rapid proliferation of synthetic "kiosk" drugs in the 2000s and early 2010s, a 2010 "Derivative Amendment" extended control to entire families of amphetamine, methamphetamine, cathinone, and methcathinone. The ordinance was further expanded in 2011 to include the 2-aminoindan family. The four families covered when the first amendment took effect accounted for approximately 80 percent of the synthetic-drug market at that time, though new substances continued to appear and legislative responses had to follow.[18]

The 2013 Struggle to Combat the Use of Dangerous Substances Law gave authorities the power to confiscate and destroy certain dangerous substances subject to a hearing. It also allowed the Health Ministry director-general, working with representatives of the Israel Anti-Drug Authority and Israel Police, to temporarily prohibit distribution of a substance considered immediately dangerous for up to one year while steps were taken to add it formally to the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. The law provided jail penalties for manufacture, import, sale, distribution, or possession for distribution of a declared substance.[18]

Israel has pursued international enforcement cooperation since at least 1991, when a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics Matters and Israel's Anti-Drug Authority established cooperation in interdiction, law enforcement, intelligence, legal assistance, training, research and development, education, and treatment and rehabilitation.[25] The country has also developed relevant interdiction technologies — including multisensor surveillance, acoustic detection, sniffing systems, unmanned aircraft, and heliborne surveillance — partly in response to the narcotics threat along its borders.[25]

Israel's drug-smuggling challenge intersects in documented ways with broader national security concerns, particularly the activities of Hezbollah. An Institute for National Security Studies analysis of 21 court rulings involving 41 defendants accused of spying for Hezbollah between 2000 and 2021 found that, in roughly half of the ten cases where Israeli defendants initiated contact with Hezbollah, drug trafficking was involved.[4] Criminal contacts with Lebanese traffickers provided one route through which some defendants' connections to Hezbollah developed. In one revised indictment cited by the INSS, a defendant admitted trafficking 80 kilograms of a dangerous hashish-type drug.[4]

A 2003 Ynet report described a case in which police and the Shin Bet arrested 12 Israeli citizens from Rajar and Kiryat Shmona, suspected of spying for Hezbollah in exchange for drug supplies. The alleged network was suspected of having smuggled more than four tons of hashish into Israel, along with pistols and other weapons, with hashish concealed in vehicle spare tires after earlier smuggling methods were changed. Some suspects in that case were indicted.[26]

Border security infrastructure has been upgraded partly in response to the combined threat of illegal immigration and smuggling. In January 2017, Israel raised a 10-mile stretch of electrified fence along the Egyptian border by 10 feet — bringing its height to 15 feet in most areas — citing the need to curb illegal immigration and the smuggling of weapons and drugs from Egypt.[27] A 1991 U.S.–Israeli memorandum of understanding formalized cooperation on narcotics interdiction, and the Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty's Annex III established structured bilateral mechanisms for combating drug smuggling, including provisions for controlled deliveries and the sharing of information about any discovered drug-producing laboratories.[25][15]

Seizure statistics across multiple reporting periods document the shifting scale of enforcement activity and, with important caveats, the patterns of the illicit trade itself. For 2003, Israeli enforcement recorded seizures of 14,795 kilograms of marijuana, 900 kilograms of hashish, 66 kilograms of cocaine, 51 kilograms of heroin, 97,658 ecstasy tablets, and 28,331 LSD blotters. The marijuana increase over 2002 was attributed to stepped-up border-unit activity near Egypt; ecstasy seizures fell sharply from a 2002 record of 930,000 tablets, which had included a single seizure of 800,000 tablets.[7]

By January–September 2011, reported enforcement seizures included 639 kilograms of marijuana and 671 kilograms of hashish (mostly from the Egyptian border), 255 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of heroin, 13,446 MDMA tablets, and 38,264 Yaba tablets. Yaba — a caffeine-and-methamphetamine pill associated with Thailand — was reported as used particularly by third-country national laborers working in Israel.[28]

Detected smuggling attempts across Israeli borders rose markedly in the 2021–2023 period. A Combating Terrorism Center dataset covering March 2021 through April 2023 recorded identified, thwarted, or disrupted attempts climbing from three in the third quarter of 2021 to 23 in the fourth quarter of 2022.[1] IDF figures cited in the same study put total identified, thwarted, or disrupted incidents along the Egyptian border at 448 in 2021 and 575 in 2022, while detected drug-smuggling attempts on that border had previously peaked at more than 700 in both 2019 and 2020 before falling in 2021 and partially recovering in 2022.[1]

In June 2022, Israeli troops intercepted 28 kilograms of cocaine near the Egyptian border, valued by the military at approximately NIS 7 million (about $2 million); no arrests were made in that incident.[29] Separately, a 2022 enforcement operation led to 70 arrests and the seizure of nearly $43 million worth of drugs, and a June 2023 bust netted criminals carrying $80,000 worth of drugs, though neither figure is accompanied by specific locational or operational context in the source.[27]

Authorities, researchers, and the CTC study itself caution that rising detection numbers do not necessarily mean that total smuggling volume increased; more intensive enforcement or better intelligence could equally explain higher detection rates. Successful undetected smuggling operations are by definition absent from any public dataset.[1]

Several aspects of the drug trade's history and current scale remain subjects of academic debate or involve historically sensitive claims. Academic scholarship describes a contradiction in Israeli drug policy from the late 1950s to the early 1980s: while authorities pursued domestic cannabis users — enforcement that the study argues disproportionately targeted first- and second-generation immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa — the Israeli military was, according to the same study, involved in covert hashish-trafficking operations into Egypt intended to immerse and immobilize the Egyptian population and armed forces. These claims should be presented as the study's conclusions; the cited research-portal page provides the article's abstract rather than its complete evidentiary discussion.[30]

U.S. State Department reports present conflicting characterizations of Israel's role in regional drug flows. The 2015 report described Israel's illicit drug trade as making Israel "more a transit country than a market destination," while the 2016 report described it as making Israel "more a market destination for narcotics than a transit country." These assessments from consecutive annual reports by the same department are directly contradictory, and neither passage supplies specific drug routes or seizure quantities to substantiate its framing.[30]

Quantitative evidence on the current scale of the trade is limited, and much of the most detailed data is historical — primarily from the 2001–2013 period. Reports of rising detected smuggling attempts in 2021–2023 should not be treated as proof of rising total trafficking, given the enforcement-intensity caveat noted by the CTC study's authors and confirmed by Israeli officials they consulted.[1] The 384 drone-breach incidents reported for part of 2025 were not broken down by type of contraband and therefore cannot be treated as a drug-smuggling count.[16]