696,121 Israelis Have Diabetes, and a Third of the Over-65s

Israel's Ministry of Health has published its 2023 Diabetes Status Report, the most detailed account yet of the disease in the country. It records 696,121 Israelis aged two and over registered as diabetic, 7.4% of the population. Prevalence climbs steeply with age: among people aged 65 and above, one in three has the disease.

The report is as much about inequality as about medicine. From the age of 35 men have higher rates than women. Lower-income neighbourhoods carry disproportionately higher rates, and Arab and Bedouin populations show both higher prevalence and greater difficulty controlling the disease than the Jewish population. Age-adjusted rates are lowest in the central districts of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Petah Tikva and Rehovot, and in Judea and Samaria, and highest in the Golan Heights, Jezreel, Hadera and Acre districts.

The damage behind the headline percentage

Among diabetics aged 25 and over, 20.6% have poor kidney function and 0.6% are on dialysis, with diabetes the primary cause in nearly 70% of those dialysis cases. A further 1.1% are eligible for blindness certification and 0.9% have undergone a limb amputation. Between 2012 and 2023 the number of diabetics grew by 0.9% a year, although the age-adjusted prevalence stayed flat, meaning the rise reflects an ageing and growing population rather than a worsening rate. Within that, rates climbed among children, adolescents, young adults and the over-85s, and fell slightly among those aged 45 to 64.

What the ministry says it is doing about it

The director of the ministry's National Center for Disease Control said the ministry had led national initiatives on obesity and diabetes for over a decade, and that the data show the disease is both more common and less well controlled in Arab communities and low-income populations. Dr Moran Bleichfeld Magnazi, who heads the ministry's nutrition division, said prevention remained the strongest tool: “Promoting a healthy diet, physical activity, and a healthy lifestyle are the most effective tools for reducing illness.”

The flagship programme is the National Program for Active and Healthy Living, in its 15th year, which pushes lower consumption of sugar, salt and saturated fat. Its most visible instrument is the red front-of-package label. The ministry's own account of the law says it was approved in December 2017 and phased in during January 2020 and January 2021, requiring a red warning mark on foods above set thresholds for sodium, sugar and saturated fat: after the second phase, 400mg of sodium, 10g of sugar or 4g of saturated fat per 100g of solid food. The ministry estimates that about 10,000 people die each year in Israel as a result of obesity and poor nutrition. Alongside the labelling rules sit updated Mediterranean-style dietary guidelines and programmes aimed at Arab communities, backed by a government allocation of 650 million shekels through 2026.

How Israel compares

Israel's age-standardised diabetes prevalence is 8.5%, against a European average of 7.0%, a comparison that JNS, in its own account of the report, traced to the International Diabetes Federation's 2021 edition. The federation's atlas remains the standard cross-country reference, and has since moved on: the World Obesity Federation's Israel profile now takes its diabetes figures from the eleventh edition, published in 2025, and separately notes that Israeli adult overweight and obesity data rests on a national survey conducted in 2018-20.

What the report did not say

The published findings did not separate type 1 from type 2 diabetes, and the 696,121 figure counts people on the national registry; the report gave no estimate of how many Israelis have the disease without knowing it. It set no numerical target for reducing prevalence and gave no cost to the health system. Nor did it say what the ministry's programmes have achieved so far, beyond noting that economic barriers continue to limit healthy eating, particularly among older adults.