Sticky tar bubbles began to emerge off the country’s Mediterranean coast last week. Images posted on official government accounts showed sea birds and turtles covered in tar and sticky oil.
The extent of the pollution is so bad that Israel’s Interior Ministry issued a warning on Sunday urging people to stay away from the country’s beaches.
Massive cleanup is underway, but the Parks and Nature Authority said it would take too long to make the marine area safe again. Established a registration and information center for volunteers who wish to help.
“According to field assessments, it is evident that these complex and strenuous operations are expected to continue for a long period of time,” said the Nature and Parks Authority.
He warned that the spill has not yet been contained, as the tar continues to wash the country’s beaches.
“Of the 190 kilometers (119 miles) of beach in Israel, 170 kilometers (105 miles) have been hit by the ecological disaster,” the official said on his Facebook page on Sunday. “The event is not over yet, and the tar still continues to emit to the coast.”
Authorities are investigating the origin of the oil spill, suspected to be from an offshore vessel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Environment Protection Minister Gila Gamliel visited a part of the tar-soaked coast on Sunday to assess the damage.
“I was very impressed with the exemplary volunteerism of the citizens who came to clean the beaches. We must maintain our beaches, our country and the environment,” said Netanyahu in a statement released by the prime minister’s office.
“I just spoke to the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources who came to us, and we proposed that all the ships you see here be powered by natural gas instead of polluting fuel, as it happened here,” he continued.
Gamliel said it was his “moral obligation to the public to locate those responsible for the event,” according to the statement.
“We have the possibility to sue the ship’s insurer responsible for the pollution and we will do everything to locate it,” he said.
In a separate statement posted to his Twitter account, Gamliel said: “We are making every effort to find those responsible for the disaster and will submit to the government’s approval tomorrow a motion for a resolution to rehabilitate the environment.”