Teen e-cigarette use surpasses regular cigarettes for first time, Health Ministry report finds

Approximately one in four adults in Israel smoke, and youth e‑cigarette use is increasing, according to the Health Ministry’s 2025 smoking report submitted to the Knesset on Monday. The report outlines the prevalence of smoking and highlights concerning trends among teenagers.

The 2025 report indicates that 23.1% of Israeli adults smoke. In 2022, smoking was responsible for 12,386 deaths, representing roughly 23% of all deaths in the country, including 894 deaths linked to secondhand smoke.

Exposure to secondhand smoke is significant: 28.9% of the Jewish population and 48.5% of the Arab population report regular exposure.

Trends in Electronic Cigarette Use Among Teenagers

One of the report’s most prominent findings is that 20% of Israeli students have tried e‑cigarettes, compared with about 19% who have tried conventional cigarettes. Notably, for the first time, the proportion of elementary‑school‑age children who have tried e‑cigarettes exceeds those who have tried regular cigarettes.

Additionally, 17% of elementary‑school‑age children reported using an e‑cigarette at least once in the past month. Experimentation with e‑cigarettes rose between 2023 and 2025 among Jewish and Arab boys and among Arab girls.

The data also indicate that 46.2% of adult Arab men smoke, which is double the overall smoking rate.

The report outlines recent actions by the Health Ministry, such as introducing graphic warnings on tobacco products, enhancing oversight and enforcement, expanding smoking‑cessation services, integrating smoking indicators into the national indicators program, and deploying broader monitoring and measurement tools.

Mandatory Graphic Warning Labels on Smoking Products

For the first time, the report incorporates data from Israel’s National Program for Quality Indicators in Community Healthcare, providing a more comprehensive view of smoking patterns and the identification, documentation, and treatment measures undertaken by health funds.

As part of the new measures, graphic warning labels will be mandatory on smoking products starting in August 2026. The Health Ministry’s regulations require that these warnings be added to existing text warnings and applied across various smoking products, with a uniform coverage of 75% of each package’s surface area.

Health Minister Haim Katz stated, “Smoking remains a major public‑health risk. The report’s data compel us to act decisively to prevent children and teenagers from being exposed to smoking products and to strengthen prevention, enforcement, and public‑information efforts.”

Health Ministry Director‑General Moshe Bar Siman Tov noted, “The report’s data show that smoking is a leading cause of illness and death in Israel, particularly among children and teenagers. Although e‑cigarette use among youth is rising alarmingly and the age of first exposure to nicotine products is decreasing, crucial legislative measures proposed by the Health Ministry to protect the public have yet to progress in the Finance Committee.”

Prof. Sigal Sadetsky, Head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health Division, added, “The seven‑year state of emergency in Israel may be prompting risky behaviors such as smoking as a means of coping with stress and anxiety.”

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