That’s actually because in former East Germany, those signs were used extensively (in Czech too AFAIK): http://www.fotocent.de/imgp/7efdaa45cbb2960694b2e90af08b388e.jpg
And they really are bars, i.e. horizontal, the route direction doesn’t matter when displaying them on a map.
I think you cannot correctly draw the Israel National Trail symbol with the currently pre-defined elements on http://www.wanderreitkarte.de/symbols_en.html - however Nop has extended that list continually, so it’s surely worth suggesting _stripe_left and _stripe_right to him.
Cheers
Colin