How to survive summer vacation: Information to keep home, play areas safe

But when September finally rolls around, a classroom’s worth of Israeli children will not return to kindergarten or school. They will have died, and tens of thousands more will have been hospitalized for unintentional accidents in July and August.

Data collected by Beterem – Safe Kids Israel are appalling, according to Dr. Orly Silbinger, who founded the organization 30 years ago with Prof. Yehuda Danon and Dr. Michal Hemo-Lotem at Petah Tikva’s Schneider Children’s Medical Center and has been its director-general since 2008. A total of 21 children and teens died in accidents during July and August 2024.

The main causes of injuries that led to deaths during the summer vacation were road accidents (nine deaths) and drowning (six). Three children drowned in a swimming pool (either at home or in vacation spots), while three drowned in the sea.

So far, in 2025, there have been two deaths from drowning. In just one month (June 2025), there were two deaths as a result of kids playing with firearms. Over half (52%, or 24 out of 46) of deaths from unintentional accidents in the second quarter of 2025 occurred among Arab-Israeli children and teenagers.

In the last five years (2020 to 2024), 79 children aged birth to 17 lost their lives as a result of drowning. One-third of these incidents occurred in natural water sources and at sea, while 41% of the cases took place in swimming pools. Some 44% of drownings were among toddlers aged birth to four, 22% among children aged five to nine, and 21% among teenagers aged 15 to 17.

In the five years before that, during the school vacation period, 83 children were taken to hospital emergency rooms due to drowning, and 38 died (an average of eight cases per year).

In the youngest ages, from birth to four years old, most deaths occur in pools, with the majority of them being home pools, while in the older ages of 10 to 17, almost all drownings occur in public spaces, mainly in the sea, with secondary injuries in streams.

Another major, completely preventable tragedy is when young children are forgotten in vehicles and trapped in cars, heated like toasters and ovens. In the last five years (2020 to 2024), 16 children lost their lives as a result of being left behind in a car, and 48 were injured and evacuated for medical treatment due to being left behind in a car. Since 2020, 112 children have been left behind in a car but were rescued safely.

“Some young kids are left at home, even though, according to the law, it’s forbidden to leave a child six years or younger alone at home, even for a moment. Even older children can get into trouble from electrical devices, strangers knocking on their doors and entering, and playing outdoors without supervision.”

A Beterem survey some years ago found that three out of five parents did not give their children any instructions for situations when they are alone and the electricity goes off, and 96% did not know at what age a child can legally be left alone.

MOST PARENTS think the home is the safest place for children and that it is possible to leave all but the youngest children alone at home during the summer. But it is not safe unless parents invest thought into making it safe.

Kitchen countertops are often too low, floors are slippery (especially when wet), microwave ovens are easily accessible, balcony railings are too low, heavy objects can be pulled away from the walls, and sofas are placed near low, unbarred windows. In addition, there are too many toys on the market that can cause harm.

With swimming pools and water parks so expensive, many parents buy inflatable swimming pools and fill them on their balconies. They don’t realize that young children can drown in just five centimeters of water, even in plastic tubs.

Being underwater for just four minutes can cause irreversible brain damage. When the water is not emptied to save money for the next time, young children can get in and drown, bemoaned Silbinger. Adults are often too busy looking at their smartphones to keep their eyes continuously on their children in the water, she said.

At bed-and-breakfast vacation spots, no fencing or lockable gates usually exist around swimming pools, so kids wander into the water and drown, the Beterem director continued. She also warned against the use of inflatable swimming rings for kids because they are not safe.

“An adult must always look directly at the child in water, even in kiddie pools. The person who is responsible should have a chain on the [child’s] wrist so it is visible and demands responsibility for children’s safety.”

In 2003, the government recognized Beterem – Safe Kids Israel as the leading organization in the country for child safety, and it has done what it can to raise awareness of the problem.

“The death rate due to unintentional, preventable injuries in Israel is four per 100,000 children who are hurt at home, on the road, and in public spaces,” Silbinger said.

“The human cost and suffering of those affected by unintentional injuries includes the disintegration of family life in cases of death, prolonged suffering to those in need of extensive medical care, and in some cases, lifelong severe disabilities taking an unimaginable toll on the life and well-being of the child, family, and community,” she added.

“A dead or disabled child will never fulfill his potential to build a better future. Since it has been proven that most injuries are preventable, it is our responsibility to back organizations that have proven, effective impacts on children’s lives and preventing their suffering.”

It’s “ordinary people who leave young children in cars out of negligence. But it destroys families, as couples have divorced over who is to blame, and the people who did it have even committed suicide. In other countries, like Singapore, children are at the top of the public agenda, but here, attention to the problem is zero. I have appeared in Knesset committees, and the technology is available, but they did nothing,” Beer said.

“Tesla cars have a device that detects the breathing of a child or a pet in the car after the door is locked. People who don’t have such alert devices in their cars, whether they have small children or not, should be punished,” Beer continued.

He also called for the mandatory requirement of smoke alarms in all homes. “Parents and other adults responsible for the death of a child in a car won’t be jailed or fined, but they should be required to do service in rehabilitation hospitals that take care of children who have been hurt in such an accident.”

Beer noted that the Ituran company provides a device that requires all school bus drivers to go through the bus and push a button at the back of the vehicle, showing that they have checked that no child has been left there. “It should be like requiring airbags. The vehicle testers should check if every car has it or not and impose a NIS 10,000 fine for those who lack them.”

THE IDEA of a Prevention of Deaths and Disasters Ministry is an excellent one, said Prof. Dorit Nitzan, dean of Ben-Gurion University’s School of Public Health in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

“Israelis have been through so much in recent years of public conflict and war that their sensitivity to dangers may have been dulled,” said Nitzan. “I see a rise in careless driving, violence, the constant paying attention to smartphones instead of young children, and the lack of awareness of neighbors who need help. People have lost a lot of concentration. Perhaps October 7 and the constant deaths of soldiers and civilians from terrorism have reduced the value we see in human lives.

“In Beersheba, where missiles landed close by, I see construction workers who are at risk of dizziness from lack of hydration and of falling. Agriculture workers are also at risk from the heat. Around the world, it has been shown that at times of war, there is more violence, and there are more accidents,” she added.

SKIN CANCER due to overexposure to damaging ultraviolet rays while sunbathing is also a danger to children, teens, and adults.

A new representative survey of 500 adults and 250 teens for the Israel Cancer Association found that about 30% of teenagers sunbathe frequently. Today’s sunbather could be tomorrow’s patient, warns the ICA. In addition, a quarter of adults also admitted that they still sunbathe.

More than 80% of the teenagers agree that tanned skin looks beautiful to them, even though it seriously ages the skin, and 87.6% of the teenagers disagree with the statement that it is worth being tanned even at the cost of health.

ICA Director-General Moshe Bar-Haim commented: “We are very concerned about the phenomenon of tanning among teenagers and young adults. Uncontrolled exposure to the sun at a young age, and especially sunburns during childhood, dramatically increase the risk of skin cancer later in life.”

Babies up to six months old should not be exposed to the sun at all. If parents insist, babies should be dressed in clothes that cover the entire body, including a wide-brimmed hat. Fair-skinned people whose skin burns easily, those with many moles, or those whose relatives have had skin cancer also belong to a risk group that requires reducing exposure. However, it should be remembered that uncontrolled exposure to the sun is harmful to everyone, including those with dark skin.

In the summer (and all seasons), breathing in the tobacco smoke of your neighbors while you sit on your balcony is very dangerous. There is a basic right to breathe free, insists attorney Amos Hausner, the longtime and devoted head lawyer of the Israel Association for the Prevention of Smoking, who is responsible for many laws limiting tobacco use.

He is representing the seven applicants in case 1416/21, among them the Clean Air Association and six people who have suffered the harsh consequences of environmental tobacco smoke at home and seek administrative redress.

In a shareholders’ meeting of a powerful American tobacco company, the chairman responded to a question dealing with the suffering of infants from secondhand tobacco smoke and said that “they could leave the room if they didn’t like the smoke.” Anne Morrow Donley, an activist who raised the issue, replied that “Infants cannot walk,” to which the chairman suggested that “they could crawl out of the room.”

“Really?” Hausner said. “Parents cannot protect children from tobacco smoke incursion into their homes. A survey has shown that about half of people – both adults and children – complained about exposure to secondhand smoke at home and their suffering from it. Many people who themselves smoke but detest exposure to neighbors’ tobacco smoke came up with the same answer.

“Secondhand smoke is annoying and causes short- and long-term health and annoyance effects. Any exposure at a distance of nine meters is dangerous. The sufferers are entitled at home to at least the same protection as in public places.”

He continued, “The worldwide trend is to provide such protection. In California, 101 local authorities have already completely banned smoking in multi-unit homes. Since 2018, smoking has been totally prohibited in all federal multi-unit buildings. In parts of Australia, such legal protection from this exposure is already available, and appropriate protective orders are issued by local courts.”

Here, Israelis should contact organizations committed to the environment, in general, and pediatric societies focused on the health and well-being of children and motivate them to introduce legislation to protect from tobacco smoke incursion, based on current precedents.

“Promote lawsuits, including about the respective authorities and those making the health nuisance, so the court will provide the protection either on the basis of the nuisance law or according to existing environmental standards if the legislature remains inactive,” said Hausner.

“No one has the right to make use of any apartment in a manner that exposes neighbors to life-threatening dangers and continuous suffering.”