The Law of Return is an Israeli federal law that grants Jewish people the right to immigrate to and gain citizenship in Israel. The Israeli Knesset, or parliament, headed by David Ben-Gurion, then the prime minister of Israel, enacted the Law of Return on 5 July 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust. The purpose of the Law of Return was to formalize Israel’s role as a homeland for Jewish people by providing a legal framework for immigration based on Jewish identity. Before the Law of Return, the British government had regulated, and sometimes strictly limited, Jewish immigration into Palestine, defined historically as the region of Southwest Asia along the eastern Mediterranean Sea, when the territory was under British control from 1920 to 1948, a period referred to as the British Mandate. By establishing that all Jews worldwide are eligible for immediate immigration to Israel, the Law of Return helps to define who has the natural right to become an Israeli citizen and become eligible for government benefits, including health care.

The Embryo Carrying Agreements (Agreement Approval and Status of the Newborn) Law, 5756-1996, hereafter Law 5756-1996, is a 1996 Israeli federal law regulating surrogacy and establishing legal parental status for children born through surrogacy. It requires that a government-appointed committee approve all surrogacy arrangements under the Israeli Ministry of Health and designates the intended parents as the legal guardians of the child born through a surrogacy arrangement. It outlines eligibility requirements for intended parents and surrogates and stipulates that physicians conduct all procedures in recognized Israeli medical facilities. The law contributed to Israel’s emergence as a global leader in assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Israel reported the highest rate of IVF treatments, per capita worldwide as of 2021, with approximately 61,000 IVF cycles performed that year. Law 5756-1996, which was one of the world’s first national legal frameworks for surrogacy, set conditions for surrogacy agreements in Israel and clarified the legal status of the resulting newborn.