JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli officials said on Wednesday that a Libyan-owned oil tanker suspected of smuggling oil from Iran to Syria was responsible for spilling tons of oil into the eastern Mediterranean last month, causing one of Israel’s worst environmental disasters.
More than 90% of Israel’s 195-kilometer (120-mile) Mediterranean coast has been covered by more than 1,000 tonnes of black tar, the result of the mysterious oil spill in international waters.
The ecological disaster, one of the worst in the country’s history, caused great damage and forced the closure of beaches and a ban on the sale of seafood from the Mediterranean.
A dog smells the tar of an oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea, on a beach at the Gdor Nature Reserve near Michmoret, Israel, Monday, March 1, 2021. The cleanup of the disastrous oil spill that blackened the biggest part of the country’s coast is expected to take months. (AP Photo / Ariel Schalit)
Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said the Panamanian-flagged “pirate ship of a Libyan company” – identified as the “Emerald” – filled its oil stocks in the Persian Gulf and sailed with its transmitters towards the Syrian coast. .
Ministry officials said he is believed to have dumped his oil in the eastern Mediterranean, about 70 kilometers off the coast of Israel, on 1 or 2 February.
Ship tracking website MarineTraffic.com listed the owner as General National Maritime Transport Co. The company, which describes itself as a Libyan state-owned company with a fleet of 22 ships, did not respond to messages left after hours.
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But the International Maritime Organization, administered by the UN, said that at the end of December 2020, the Emerald became a new property. It lists the active owner as Emerald Marine Ltd., which is registered in the Marshall Islands. Marshall Islands Maritime and Corporate Administrators did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Rani Amir, one of the ministry’s top investigators in the incident, said “strong circumstantial evidence” pointed to Emerald’s involvement, and that he was believed to be involved in smuggling oil into Syria in violation of international sanctions.
“We don’t think it had any other purpose,” he said. “The aim was to smuggle oil illegally from Iran into Syria.”
Amir said the leak could have been an accident or a deliberate act of terrorism.
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Iranian tankers have been increasingly accused of smuggling oil out of the country and selling lucrative oil abroad after then President Donald Trump withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers nearly three years ago. Trump has again imposed comprehensive sanctions on the country, including the oil sector, Tehran’s main source of income.
In 2019, the UK seized an Iranian oil tanker suspected of violating European Union sanctions on oil shipments to Syria, triggering a series of clashes. Iranian tankers sometimes turn off their identification system, making them difficult to track.
Gamliel, however, called the incident a deliberate act “environmental terror” and blamed Iran. Gamliel, a junior minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, did not provide evidence to support this theory.
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“We will sue for compensation for all citizens of Israel,” she said at a news conference.
Gamliel’s spokesman declined requests for clarification, and the Israeli military and ministries of defense and foreign affairs were unable to confirm the allegation.
Iranian authorities did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.
Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection kept the details of its investigation of the incident under surveillance and obtained a court order to ban all details of the case.
Tar globules began to appear on the coast of Israel on February 19, after a winter storm took the stain to the coast. The tar also covered parts of the Lebanese coast.
The impact of the oil spill on the ecosystem has not yet been fully assessed, but ecologists and environmental groups estimate the damage to be extensive.
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Last month, the ministry allocated 45 million shekels ($ 13 million) to the cleaning project, which is expected to take months. The sea continued to dredge tar on Israel’s beaches almost two weeks after the disaster.