Since Since the applicants do not claim a proprietary right in the property but only rely on their right as creditors of the Hamas organization, it seems that even if they had wished to appear in the proceeding on behalf of the vessel, there would have been room to reject their application in accordance with the rules established by the courts for the client in England. As I noted above, Israeli courts have not yet dealt with the question of the representation of third parties on behalf of the vessel in confiscation proceedings under the Client Law, and to the extent that the applicants believe that the English precedent should deviate, they must submit an appropriate application, in accordance with the 1939 Regulations, and specify why their right as creditors of the Hamas organization to appear on behalf of the vessel in the proceeding should be recognized. Of course, in such a request, it would be necessary to bring prima facie proof that Hamas is the owner of the vessel, and I will address this matter later in the decision.
Civil Procedure
- Even if we assume that the applicants rely on the provisions of the civil procedure, this does not benefit them, since their application does not fulfill the conditions for adding a foreign party to the proceeding.
As is well known, according to the Civil Procedure Regulations, 5744-1984 (hereinafter: the Old Regulations), the court was authorized to order the addition of a foreign party to the proceeding even if the parties originating to the proceeding objected to it (see Regulation 24 of the Old Civil Procedure Regulations; Civil Appeal 377/63 Branch v. "Nachshonim" Poalim Group for Cooperative Settlement Ltd., IsrSC 19 225 (1965); Y. Rosen Zvi, The Civil Procedure Reform: Guide of the Perplexed 228 (Third Edition - Digital, 1.2025)).
The rule is that the addition of a foreigner to the proceeding, contrary to the position of the parties, will be done only in exceptional cases, such as when the foreign party claims rights in the property that is the subject of the proceeding, when his joining is intended to prevent infringement of his rights, when the joining is necessary to streamline the proceedings, and so on (see: Civil Appeal Authority 5861/15 Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality v. Shumovitz (26/1/2016); Civil Appeal Authority 1949/16 M.S. Aluminum Products in Tax Appeal v. Rahamim (7/4/2016)).