Following the abandonment of the previous season's Liga Alef, Bet and Gimel, the IFA council decided to cancel the previous season's leagues and to open the current season without promotion or relegation taking place.[1] The decision was met with discontent at Beitar Jerusalem (who was leading Liga Alef), Hapoel Tiberias and Hapoel Ramla (leaders of the Liga Bet North and South divisions).[2] After deliberations, in December 1958, The FA Judiciary Tribunal ordered the FA to promote Hapoel Tiberias as soon as possible, pending the FA approval, with matches played by the club during the 1958–59 season not counting towards the table.[3] The FA decided to promote Hapoel Tiberias automatically to Liga Alef at the end of the season, counting its whole season as friendly matches.
For the first time, the FA decided to establish a fifth tier in its league system. The fifth tier, which was officially called "Additional Liga Gimel", but was known as Liga Dalet, was open for clubs which registered to the FA during the summer and couldn't be added to 1958–59 Liga Gimel.[4]
In January 1959 the FA decided to expand At the end of the season, Liga Alef (second tier) was expanded from 12 teams to 14 teams and Liga Bet (third tier) was expanded from 24 teams (in two divisions) to 64 teams (in four divisions). This meant that while two teams relegated from Liga Alef, four promoted from Liga Bet (one of which is Hapoel Tiberias, whose place in Liga Alef was guaranteed), and that no clubs were relegated from Liga Bet and 42 club were promoted from Liga Gimel, which included the 12 league leaders from 1957–58 Liga Gimel at the time the season was stopped.[5]
The national team took a brief tour of Poland in June 1959, playing one international match and one unofficial match. Israel was beaten 2–7 in the international match, which was labelled in Israel as the "Wrocław Shame".[6] The other match, was billed as a match between Łódź and Tel Aviv ended with a 1–1 draw.
