Last week, sticky tar stains began to be washed off the country’s Mediterranean coasts. Images posted in official government accounts showed seabirds and turtles covered in tar and sticky oil.
The extent of the pollution is so bad, the Israeli Interior Ministry issued a consultative warning on Sunday urging people to stay away from the country’s beaches.
A massive clean-up is being done, but the authority for nature and parks said it would take a long time to return to the safe marine area. He has created an information and registration center for volunteers who want to help.
“According to the field assessments, it is clear that these complex and strenuous operations will have to continue for a long period of time,” the Nature and Parks Authority said.
He warned that the spill had not yet been contained, as tar continues to wash on the country’s beaches.
“Of the 190 kilometers (119 miles) of beach in Israel, 170 kilometers (105 miles) were affected by the ecological disaster,” the authority said Sunday on its Facebook page. “The event is not over yet and the tar is still emitting on the shore.”
Authorities are investigating the source of the oil spill, which is suspected to have come from an offshore vessel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Environment Minister Gila Gamliel toured part of the tar-soaked coastline on Sunday to assess the damage.
“I was very impressed by the exemplary voluntarism of the citizens who came to clean the beaches. We need to maintain our beaches, our country and the environment,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by the prime minister’s office.
“I just spoke to the Egyptian Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources who has come to us and we have proposed that all the ships you see here run on natural gas instead of polluting fuel, as happened here,” he continued.
Gamliel said his “moral obligation to the public is to locate those responsible for the event,” according to the statement.
“We have the ability to sue the insurance company of the ship responsible for the pollution and we will do everything to locate it,” he said.
In a separate statement posted on his Twitter account, Gamliel said, “We are making every effort to find those responsible for the disaster and tomorrow we will bring to the government’s approval a proposed resolution to rehabilitate the environment.”