A career Border Police officer who injured his knee after slipping on stairs inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron has been officially recognized as a disabled veteran under the Disabled IDF Veterans Law.
The Haifa Appeals Committee granted the recognition after the Defense Ministry rejected his request, arguing that the fall did not occur during an operational activity. Judge Amir Salameh, who chaired the committee, ruled that being stationed in such a volatile and high-risk location gives the mission an operational character.
The incident took place in the winter of 2022, shortly after the officer had completed a night shift. Around 10 p.m., his commander instructed him to open the holy site for an unscheduled visit to allow a rabbi and his entourage to pray there. Accompanied by a female officer, he unlocked three gates and proceeded toward a fourth when he slipped on wet stairs—apparently from rainwater—and injured his knee.
The Defense Ministry’s compensation officer initially denied his claim, saying the injury occurred during a routine shift and was comparable to a civilian workplace accident. The officer appealed, insisting the injury happened in the course of a “military operation,” citing his commander’s statement that the mission took place in a “combat zone” where the purpose was to prevent terror activity.
Judge Salameh rejected the ministry’s argument, writing that it is inappropriate to compare a slip at a supermarket to one at a site “prone to danger and security volatility” such as the Cave of the Patriarchs.
“When a Border Police officer is ordered to open the gates of the Cave of the Patriarchs to allow visitors to enter and secure them, he enters an operational mode that requires constant alertness and a sense of being in a mission environment,” the judge wrote. “A supermarket worker asked to open a back gate cannot be equated to a Border Police officer tasked with opening gates at one of the most sensitive sites in the country.”
While acknowledging that walking down stairs and slipping on wet ground can occur in civilian life, Salameh said the defining factor was the overall nature of the activity, “viewed from a bird’s-eye perspective,” rather than the isolated act of stepping on a stair.
He added that even if the officer’s task were not formally defined as “operational,” it still met the legal criteria of an injury sustained in an event “whose character, nature and circumstances are unique to military service.”
The judge ruled that the officer should be recognized as an IDF disabled veteran and awarded him legal fees of 5,900 shekels.