Precedent-setting ruling accepts government’s position against class action suits for environmental harm, unless they have suffered personally
Zafrir Rinat. Jul 21, 2025
The state is responsible for filing lawsuits in the name of the public for environmental damage, according to a ruling handed down in the Tel Aviv District Court this month.
The ruling has precedent-setting importance because it accepts the government’s opinion that private citizens are not allowed to file class action lawsuits for environmental harm except in cases where it can be proven that they personally suffered damage.
Given the state’s lack of effective environmental enforcement, this ruling could make it more challenging to address polluters and the damage they cause, as well as the continued use of class action suits. This procedure has become a vital tool in the public’s fight against these issues.
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Judge Rachel Lavi-Barkai of the Tel Aviv District Court ruled on the matter based on a request submitted by Herzliya residents to approve a class action suit against the state, the Israel Land Authority and Netzer Hasharon, a government company involved in returning the former land of the Israel Military Industries to civilian use. Attorneys Iris Gilberg-Yudashkin and Shiri Peled of the Tel Aviv District’s State Prosecutor’s Office represented the government.
This lawsuit concerned the pollution caused to the city’s northern beaches, known as the “Yellow Stain,” resulting from the long-term exposure of seawater to pollutants initially originating from the land where the Military Industries operated until 1997. The compound in the city’s Nof Yam area has old explosives and ammunition buried there, as well as chemicals that have seeped into the groundwater and from there into the Mediterranean Sea. This ongoing pollution has lasted for decades.
The plaintiffs argued that although some of these materials are poisonous, the public was not warned about them for years. As a result, surfers and divers were exposed to these pollutants. This exposure occurred not only on the nearby beach, which is not an official municipal beach and the primary focus of the pollution, but also on nearby official beaches. The residents sought to use the class action suit to demand monetary compensation for the time they spent in the water and to require the government to commit to addressing the pollution.
The demand for compensation did not stem from a claim of physical harm, but out of what is described in legal terms as the “loss of autonomy” in tort law. In this case, this is expressed in the residents’ being exposed to risk without their having been informed of the danger, the plaintiffs said.
Lavi-Barkai ruled that it is not in dispute that the source of the untreated pollution in the sea is the Military Industries compound, which operated there until 1997. The residents’ anger over the pollution and its impact on their enjoyment of the beaches is also understandable.
Still, she said they were very well aware of the pollution problem, as it stood out and could be clearly seen, she said. In accordance with the position of the Health Ministry, the plaintiffs did not prove the pollution represented a danger while they were in the water, and they did not present any medical documentation of harm they suffered, she ruled.
As for the request for a class action suit, Lavi-Barkai ruled that the damage to the marine environment does not establish a right for the plaintiffs to sue at a time when none of them suffered any harm. “The state is the one that bears the responsibility to protect public health from environmental damage, and has the right to sue in the public’s name,” she ruled.
In two cases, that of the industrial pollution in the Nahal Bokek Nature Reserve near the Dead Sea and the “Dieselgate” case in which Volkswagen sold vehicles that emitted pollution exceeding the standards, the government claimed that it was the institution responsible for protecting the public interest – including in the event of environmental harm and damage to natural resources – and in both cases it sued the polluters. It also did so in the cases where two other nature reserves were polluted.
“This is a most disappointing ruling,” said Prof. Alon Tal, an expert in environmental law from Tel Aviv University who was involved in past class action suits against companies that polluted the groundwater in the Judean Desert.
The law was passed exactly for such cases – to allow lawsuits to be filed against the polluter due to the environmental hazard, he said. The ruling grants the government an exemption from following environmental laws, and the message is that it’s not worth exercising legal rights, as the court will demand excessive evidence of damages, he added.
Instead of accelerating the filing of class action suits, the judge joined the official position of many government bodies that have, for years, given up on the beaches and Israel’s water resources due to a distorted set of priorities, Tal said.
The ruling is also not in line with the spirit of the Supreme Court, which recently recognized the responsibility of various polluters years after they created the hazards, he said.