Got a refusal and a departure order from Israel? A practical guide to temporary and interim orders before the Appeals Tribunal. Our office handles these cases.
A decision by the Population and Immigration Authority to refuse a status application, to discontinue a graduated process, or not to extend a residency permit almost always comes with a departure order: you must leave Israel by a stated date. Once that date passes, your stay is no longer lawful, and a removal order — and even a detention order — can be issued against you, even while you are pursuing legal proceedings against the decision itself.
This is where interim relief comes in. A temporary (ex parte) order is a short-term order, sometimes granted on an ex parte basis immediately upon filing the appeal. An interim order is the order that follows it and preserves the status quo until the main proceeding is decided. This guide explains who is authorized to issue these orders, what is weighed in deciding them, and why timing — whether the permit was still valid on the day the application was filed — is often the difference between success and rejection.
The source is the Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952. Challenges to the Authority's decisions are heard by the Appeals Tribunal for immigration matters, whose procedure is set out in the Entry into Israel Regulations (Tribunal Procedure and Administration), 5774-2014.
Regulation 13(a) authorizes the Tribunal to grant temporary (ex parte) relief on an ex parte basis, if there is a concern that delaying a decision on the application for interim relief would cause the applicant "severe, irreparable harm." Under Regulation 12(d), after a temporary order is issued the Authority is given an opportunity to respond within 7 days; if it chooses not to respond, it is deemed not to object, and the temporary order is recorded as an interim order without a further decision — as, for example, in Appeal (Tel Aviv) 1057-25 (8 Jan 2025).
The process is not automatic: under Regulation 12(b) the Tribunal may deny an application for interim relief based solely on the notice of appeal and the application, without even requesting the Authority's response (Appeal (Jerusalem) 2082-26 (10 May 2026)). It follows that the application must be complete, supported by an affidavit and by evidence, on the very day it is filed. Parallel authority is vested in the District Court sitting as the Court for Administrative Affairs in proceedings pending before it.
A decision on an application for interim relief rests on two considerations — the prospects of success and the balance of convenience — with the balance of convenience generally serving as the main touchstone. This was held in LCA 2962/21 Barishnikov v. Population and Immigration Authority (1 June 2021), at para. 7, and has been quoted by the tribunals and the administrative courts ever since. The tribunals describe the relationship between the two conditions as a "parallelogram of forces": the more clearly the balance of convenience favors you, the less you need to prove regarding the prospects of the appeal, and vice versa.
The balance of convenience is not measured only from your point of view: the tribunals also weigh the harm to the Authority's ability to enforce its policy and the damage to the public interest (Appeal (Tel Aviv) 1611-26 (12 Mar 2026)). That same decision noted the established rule that removal itself is not, as a rule, irreversible harm, since someone whose appeal is granted can return to Israel, and the proceeding can be conducted through an attorney. A general claim of "I want to stay until the matter is decided" is therefore not enough: you must show concrete harm — minor children who depend on you, medical treatment, a long-standing center of life in Israel, or danger in your country of origin.
This is the point that decides many cases. The main purpose of interim relief is to preserve the status quo, in order to prevent abuse of the interim period; therefore, a temporary mandatory order, which changes the status quo and is essentially identical to the main relief sought, will be granted "sparingly and restrictively" (LCA 3661/24 (1 May 2024), at para. 7).
The implication is clear: as long as the permit is valid, a request not to remove you and to extend the permit until the matter is decided preserves the status quo. If the permit has already expired, that very same request becomes a mandatory order. This is what happened in Appeal (Jerusalem) 1586-26 (17 Mar 2026): the appellant's A/5 permit expired on 31 December 2025; the Tribunal held that extending it would in fact be a renewal — that is, a mandatory order — and denied the request, but left in place an order barring enforcement and removal proceedings until the appeal was decided. This is a common interim outcome: you remain in Israel, but without a permit and without a work authorization.
The rule is not absolute. In Barishnikov, at para. 9, it was held that someone who had held an A/5 permit for more than ten years fell within the exception justifying interim relief even though it was a "mandatory order," and the court stressed that the order does not create an irreversible situation — if the appeal is denied, the temporary permit can be revoked. The practical conclusion: file the appeal and the application for interim relief before the permit expires.
A common mistake is to assume that filing an internal appeal with the Authority freezes the departure order. Clause א.2 of Procedure 1.6.0001 (Procedure for Handling Requests and Appeals Against Decisions of Population and Immigration Authority Bureaus and Headquarters; 8th edition, 24 Feb 2022) states the opposite: merely filing a request or an internal appeal — or even scheduling an appointment to file one — does not prevent removal from Israel or placement in detention, unless a specific procedure provides otherwise or a judicial decision orders a stay of execution.
This was also held in Adm. Appeal (Jerusalem) 16664-03-25 (9 Mar 2025): an employee whose permit was revoked and who was required to leave within 14 days filed an internal appeal after the deadline had passed and remained in Israel. The court held that the internal appeal did not confer a stay of execution, and that the applicant's self-help and lack of clean hands were, on their own, sufficient to deny the application for an interim order.
The correct path, then, is an internal appeal to the Authority, followed by an appeal to the Appeals Tribunal within 30 days (Section 13כד(ב) of the Law), always accompanied by an application for a temporary order and an interim order. An interim decision of the Tribunal may be challenged by an application for leave to appeal to the District Court sitting as the Court for Administrative Affairs under Section 13לא(ב) of the Law — but the appellate instance tends not to intervene in decisions of this kind except in exceptional cases (LCA 3661/24, at para. 6).
An interim order is almost always conditional. In Appeal (Tel Aviv) 1057-25 (8 Jan 2025), a temporary order barring removal was granted subject to posting a bond of NIS 3,500 within 7 days; the Tribunal held that the order would remain valid for seven months, or until a further decision or judgment in the appeal, whichever came first, and that it was the appellants' responsibility to petition for its extension up to 14 days before it expired. Someone who misses that deadline may be left with no protection.
The amount of the bond is derived from an assessment of the risk of settling permanently. In Appeal (Jerusalem) 1861-25 (5 May 2025), the order was conditioned on a bond of NIS 50,000, and following a reasoned request the sum was split into three installments — with a warning that if they were not deposited in full on time, the order would lapse and the Authority could proceed with removal even before the appeal was decided. The same decision also clarified that staying in Israel by virtue of an order is not lawful presence: an order preventing removal is not a substitute for issuing a visa, and does not by itself confer a right to work.
Two separate proceedings run in parallel: the question of removal is heard by the Appeals Tribunal, while the legality of detention is heard by the Detention Review Tribunal. An order staying removal does not release you from detention, and can sometimes even extend it — the Authority cannot carry out the removal, but the detention order remains in force.
This tension arose in Adm. Appeal (Tel Aviv) 7257-03-26 (19 Mar 2026): the applicant had been held in detention for many months, and the court — although it denied the application for leave to appeal — remarked, in passing, that in circumstances of an emergency situation and prolonged detention, the tribunals should consider releasing such applicants subject to posting a bond. In Appeal (Tel Aviv) 1611-26 (12 Mar 2026), the Tribunal confronted the same difficulty from the opposite direction. So when the person concerned is in detention, both proceedings should be pursued in parallel — an application for interim relief before the Appeals Tribunal, together with an application for release on bond.
Adm. Appeal (Jerusalem) 21159-12-24 (23 Dec 2024) concerned a foreign national who had lived in Israel for about 15 years, the father of two Israeli children, whose status-regularization process was discontinued because of a pending investigation file. The Appeals Tribunal barred his removal subject to a bond but refused to extend his A/5 permit. The District Court granted the application for leave to appeal: once he was permitted to remain, he should be able to support himself and his children, and the permit was to be extended by six months at a time until the appeal was decided. The lesson: when removal is stayed but a work permit is denied, that creates harm that can be challenged before the appellate court.
By contrast, in Adm. Appeal (Tel Aviv) 7257-03-26 (19 Mar 2026), an application for leave to appeal a refusal to grant an interim order was denied. The applicant had remained without a permit for more than a year and a half, and the application to regularize her status based on a relationship was filed only after enforcement action had already begun. The court rejected the argument that the order was meant to preserve the status quo, holding that in these circumstances the "status quo" was continued unlawful presence. The lesson: approaching the Authority only after enforcement has begun harms both the prospects of success and the balance of convenience.
In Appeal (Jerusalem) 1861-25 (5 May 2025), an order preventing enforcement was granted to a family seeking status on humanitarian grounds, even though the prospects of the appeal were assessed as not promising — subject to a high bond meant to offset the concern of settling permanently. The lesson: even when the prospects are not high, protection can still be achieved, provided a mechanism is offered to secure departure if the appeal is denied.
Finally, in Adm. Petition (Jerusalem) 60627-10-24 (8 Dec 2024), a temporary order was issued as soon as the petition was filed, preventing the removal of an applicant who claimed a risk to life in his country of residence; in the judgment the court ordered a fresh review of his case and left the order in force for another thirty days. The lesson: an application for temporary relief filed together with the main proceeding and supported by professional documentation can sometimes be the difference between a hearing on the merits and a case that becomes moot.
We accompany individuals and their families through the critical stage between the administrative decision and the judicial ruling: a rapid check of the permit's validity and the relevant deadlines, filing an appeal with the Appeals Tribunal or an administrative petition together with an application for a temporary order and an interim order, building the evidentiary foundation for the balance of convenience, handling the bond issue, tracking the order's expiry and its extension, and managing parallel detention proceedings and applications for leave to appeal interim decisions. Every case is examined on its own merits, and we do not guarantee an outcome — but correct timing and a complete filing on day one substantially change the starting point.
A temporary order is a short-term order that the Tribunal may issue even on an ex parte basis, when there is a concern that delaying the decision would cause severe, irreparable harm (Regulation 13(a) of the Entry into Israel Regulations (Tribunal Procedure and Administration), 5774-2014). An interim order is the order that remains in force until the main proceeding is decided. In practice, after a temporary order is issued the Authority is given an opportunity to respond within 7 days, and if it does not respond, the temporary order is recorded as an interim order without a further decision.
No. Clause א.2 of Procedure 1.6.0001 states that merely filing a request or an internal appeal, or even scheduling an appointment to file one, does not prevent removal from Israel or placement in detention, unless a specific procedure provides otherwise or a judicial decision orders a stay of execution. Only an order from the Appeals Tribunal or from the court actually stops the removal.
It is possible, but harder. Once the permit has expired, a request to extend it is treated as a mandatory order that changes the status quo, and such an order will be granted "sparingly and restrictively" (LCA 3661/24 (1 May 2024)). The Tribunal will sometimes grant an order preventing enforcement and removal but refuse to extend the permit, so you remain in Israel without a work permit. In exceptional circumstances — for example, someone who has held temporary status for many years — it has been held that a mandatory order can also be granted.
As a rule, yes. The tribunals condition an order preventing removal on posting a bond, the amount of which is derived, among other things, from the assessed risk of settling permanently and from the applicant's past conduct. Amounts range from a few thousand shekels to tens of thousands, and in suitable cases you can request a reduction or installment payments — but failing to post the bond on time may void the order and allow removal even before the appeal is decided.
Not necessarily, and usually not. It has been held that staying in Israel by virtue of an order is not lawful presence, and that an order preventing removal is not a substitute for the Authorities issuing a visa. If you also need a work permit, you should request it explicitly in the application for interim relief, and if refused, consider an application for leave to appeal to the District Court sitting as the Court for Administrative Affairs.