Israel’s Beaches Are Littered With Tar After Mysterious Oil Spill
“In Israel, we have maritime domain blindness,” said a retired Rear Admiral in the Israeli Navy, now head of the Maritime Policy and Strategy Research Center of the University of Haifa. “Our activities are always focused on thwarting terrorist activities, but this is not a complete picture of security at sea.”
Admiral Korev said that to prevent future oil leaks from reaching the coastline, not only would Israel need to invest in satellites and other tracking equipment, but a government with clear responsibility for monitoring its coast for ecological disasters The body will also have to be handed over.
Environmental activists warned that the damage from the spill was significant, a leak from natural gas leaks off the Israeli coast could be even more devastating. Israel has invested heavily to develop natural gas fields off its coast and began exporting gas to Egypt in late 2019.
“It should be a wake up call,” said Maya Jacobs, director of Zalul, an organization that advocates for preserving bodies of water in and around Israel, which would depend a lot on water impoundment is. “We should monitor leakage immediately and transition to using renewable energy.”
In Lebanon, the Prime Minister’s Office said the tar reached the southern edge of that country. It also claimed an oil spill originating from an Israeli ship, but provided no evidence to support this claim.
Yasir al-Shanti, the head of the Water Authority in Gaza, said no oil had reached the beaches of Gaza, but officials were monitoring the situation.
Moshiko Saadi, an environmental activist who spent Tuesday helping to clean up a beach in northern Israel, said he was “heartbroken” by the ubiquity of the tar.
“So many people are cleaning and quickly filling bag after bag,” Mr. Saadi said, “but then you look and you see that there are still enough amounts everywhere. It makes you feel helpless. is. “
