Australian man trapped in Israel ‘for 8000 years’ over unpaid child support

An Australian man living in Israel has run into major issues regarding unpaid child support and now faces a travel ban of 8,000 years. Noam Huppert is said to owe £1.8m to his ex-wife and is not allowed to leave Israel until 31 December 9999 under a 2013 “stay of exit” order issued by the courts.

Huppert, 44, is an analytical chemist working for a pharmaceutical company in the country according to news.co.au. The court in Israel has ordered that he must pay 5,000 shekels (£1,200) a month for each of his two children and continue to do so until their 18th birthday. What is unclear is if Huppert has made any payments at all to date, or whether the entire sum is due before he can leave the country and release the order. Huppert has been contacted by The Guardian for more information on the unpaid child support.

Huppert’s ex-wife is an Israeli national who took their children back to her home country in 2011 when they were aged three months and five years old. He then followed in 2012 and said he has not been able to leave for any reason since. “Since 2013, I am locked in Israel,” Huppert told news.com.au, adding that he was one of many foreign nationals “persecuted by the Israeli ‘justice’ system only because they were married to Israeli women” and that he was speaking out “to help others who may suffer this literally life-threatening experience”.

While most rulings of the Israeli court are criticised as favouring men, there have been some changes made to alimony law recently. A 2017 supreme court ruling decided that fathers should no longer be solely responsible for alimony, particularly in cases where their ex-wives earn more money than they do.

“Truth be told, the core of family law in Israel – the laws of marriage and divorce – are characterised by a lack of equality between men and women,” Judge Noam Solberg said at the time. “Despite this, there is no justification for an unequal division of unpaid child support payments.”

In its travel advice for Israel, the US state department includes a warning to citizens that Israel’s civil and religious courts “actively exercise their authority to bar certain individuals, including non-residents, from leaving the country until debts or other legal claims against them are resolved”.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, do remember to come back and check The Euro Weekly News website for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.