What happens if an heir dies after the deceased but before the estate is distributed in Israel?

Israeli succession law treats the transfer of an estate as happening automatically at the instant of death, not when the paperwork is completed. Section 1 of the Succession Law provides that on a person's death their estate passes to their heirs, so obtaining a tzav yerusha (succession order) and physically distributing the assets are administrative steps that confirm a right which already exists. An heir who survives the deceased therefore owns their share from the first moment, and that share is a transmissible asset. When the heir later dies, whatever they were entitled to receive folds into their own estate and devolves on their heirs under their own will or the intestacy rules. The result is two estates and, in practice, two sets of proceedings before the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs.

For families spread across countries this creates a practical sequencing problem. The heirs of the second deceased usually cannot collect anything until a succession or probate order is issued for the first estate and a second order is issued for the second estate, and the two often proceed in parallel. Timing also matters when the two deaths occur close together: the order of death decides who inherited from whom, and it must be proven with medical or official records. Where that order genuinely cannot be established, Section 9 of the Succession Law applies a simultaneous-death presumption, treating neither person as having survived the other, so each estate passes to its own heirs without crossing over. Foreign heirs handling this from abroad typically grant a notarized and apostilled power of attorney to an Israeli attorney to run both files.

From the full guide: Distributing an Israeli Estate: The Complete Process

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