A law allowing terminally ill patients the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment went into effect Friday in Israel.

Until now, terminally ill patients not wanting to continue life-prolonging treatment needed a court ruling, Ynet News said.

Under provisions of the law, a terminally ill patient must explicitly say treatment is not wanted. If the patient is not competent, the doctors are to act in accordance with instructions left by the patient or by someone who has the patient's medical power of attorney, the report said.

A "dying patient" is defined as a patient with no more than six months left to live, even with medical treatment, or as a patient suffering from multiple medical crises and has up to two weeks to live.

The law bans assisted suicide or taking action designed to end a patient's life, even at the patient's request.

Dying patients also can request and receive life-prolonging measures, even if the physician thinks treatment is not needed, the report said.

Yitzhak Hoshen, an attorney who represented terminally ill patients in the past and a member of the committee that drafted the bill, said the new law was "a breakthrough."