The Environmental Protection Ministry ruled out Wednesday the threat of an oil spill off the coast of Netanya after it detected a maritime stain the day before. 

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"Currently, there are no concrete findings indicating the existence of an oil spill off the coast of Israel," Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg said. 

The ministry was first informed of the suspected spill by the European Maritime Safety Agency, which said that it spotted the issue via satellite. Late Tuesday, the Defense Ministry dispatched a reconnaissance flight to gather more information. The R/V Bat-Galim deep-sea research ship took samples on Wednesday and sprayed dispersants into the water, according to The Times of Israel.

Zandberg shut down the "tier-3" national incident that was declared on Tuesday, stating that all ships and marine vessels investigating the incident will return to shore. The ministry will continue to monitor the situation. 

The ministry has not disclosed details on the origina and nature of the spill at this time.

Tuesday's event occurred almost exactly a year after a massive oil spill contaminated Israel's Mediterranean coast with tar and took a heavy toll on wildlife, considered the country's worst natural disaster in decades. The tar was still washing up six months after the oil leak.

JNS.org and i24NEWS contributed to this report.

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The Environmental Protection Ministry said late Tuesday it had detected a possible oil spill off the coast of central Israel that could become a national or regional pollution incident.

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Earlier in the day, it was alerted by the European Maritime Safety Agency, who satellites identified the suspected spill. Initially, the ministry was unable to locate it, but was later assisted by the Israel Defense Forces, whose reconnaissance flights detected the spill 25 miles off the coast of Netanya.

The ministry said in a statement it has established a dedicated situation room in Haifa to tackle the population.

"The military is assisting with sea and air patrols to formulate a response, and the Home Front Command is on standby to assist if the spill reaches the shore," it said.

The Defense Ministry, Nature and Parks Authority, Society for the Protection of Nature and local municipalities are also involved in the assessment of the situation and have been instructed to prepare for a possible national emergency.

"All parties involved conducted situation assessments yesterday [Tuesday]," the ministry said.

The Water Authority said in a statement that "as of this moment, no special instructions have been given to desalination plants. The plants' filtration systems are working as usual and if there is any suspicion of pollution, the pumping will be stopped immediately. Even in such a case, no disruption in the water supply is expected."

The news comes almost exactly a year after a massive oil spill contaminated Israel's Mediterranean coast with tar and took a heavy toll on wildlife, considered the country's worst natural disaster in decades.

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An oil slick believed to have originated from a power plant inside one of Syria's oil refineries could reach Cyprus' northeastern tip in the next 24 hours, the Mediterranean island nation's Fisheries and Marine Research Department said Monday.

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The Cypriot government has informed Turkish Cypriot authorities about the slick's progress and said it was ready to offer any assistance.

Syria's state news agency said last week that the spill occurred after fuel leaked from a tank at the Baniyas Thermal Station.

Syria's oil resources are mostly outside of government-controlled areas, but its two refineries are under government control. This makes Damascus reliant on Iran for fuel, but US Treasury sanctions have hindered the supply network, which spans Syria, Iran, and Russia.

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A month after Israel's Mediterranean coastline was polluted by crude oil in one of the worst environmental disasters in decades, the Environmental Protection Ministry announced Wednesday that the "event" was over and the state of emergency had been lifted.

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The Environmental Protection Ministry said that local authorities would continue to work on the beaches that were still not graded "blue" – meaning low-level pollution or clean – according to its beach map.

Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said Wednesday morning, "After an especially intense month, we are moving to the next stage and continuing to support coastal authorities in their work to clean and remove the tar to allow the beaches to be fully cleaned. We thank the employees of the ministry, the local authorities, the volunteers, and the environmental groups, primarily Ecoocean, with whose help the incident was addressed quickly and effectively.

"We are continuing to work with the International Monetary Fund to demand compensation for the serious damage to Israel's beaches," Gamliel added.

A statement from the ministry noted that in the past few weeks, intensive clean-up efforts had restored 82% of the country's 101 official beaches to use.

"If we look at all the beaches, official and open, 61% are clean or have only very low levels of pollution; 36% are graded as having low-level to mid-level pollution; and only 3% of beaches are significantly pollution – mainly, Selaim Beach," the ministry said.

As of Wednesday, over 650 tons of mixed tar have been removed from the beaches, the equivalent of 83% of the pollution that washed ashore from the tanker.

The ministry also said it would work with local authorities to set up diving teams to conduct surveys to locate masses of tar underway, as well as look into the possibility of conducting an underwater cleaning campaign based on the results of those surveys.

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The owners of The Emerald, the tanker believed to have spilled massive amounts of oil off the Israeli coast in February, have been identified, the Environmental Protection Ministry revealed Sunday.

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According to an independent investigation by the private intelligence agency Black Cube, the tanker – registered in the Marshall Islands – is owned by a company called Emerald Marine LTD.

The information provided by Black Cube indicates that the tanker is owned by Oryx Shipping and its address is registered in Piraeus, Greece.

The company is believed to be owned by the Malah family of Syria, whose ships are insured by the Islamic P&I Club, known as one of the only companies in the world willing to insure Iranian ships.

The information provided to Black Cube showed that the Malah Group owns a chain of straw companies in the Marshall Islands, Panama and even a British company, all of which are registered at the same address in Piraeus.

At the beginning of the month, Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said that a "pirate ship" owned by a Libyan company that departed from Iran had been responsible for the oil spill.

"We got our hands on the criminal ship," Gamliel said in a tweet, offering no further details.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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A team of Israeli investigators sent to Greece to inspect a ship suspected of causing an oil spill that has covered much of Israel's shoreline with tar has concluded the vessel was not responsible for the natural disaster, the Environment Protection Ministry said, Sunday.

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Israel has been looking at a spill from a ship that passed about 50 kilometers (30 miles) offshore on Feb. 11 as the possible source of what environmental groups are calling a disaster for wildlife.

"We will ... use all means until we find the environmental perpetrator responsible for the pollution," Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said in a statement, Saturday.

Volunteers and thousands of soldiers have been gathering daily on Israel's beaches to remove the clumps of sticky black tar, which have also been washing up in southern Lebanon.

Representatives for the Minerva Helen, a Greek-flagged ship suspected of being the source of the pollution, told Israel Hayom the vessel could not have been responsible for the spill.

"The tanker had no cargo [oil] on deck – it was completely empty. It reached Singapore via the Suez Canal and waited for orders between Feb.4-11. That is totally normal for this kind of ship," they said.

To bolster their position, the company quoted a report from the online shipping magazine Lloyd's List that quoted European sources as supposedly confirming that the "Minerva Helen could not be the source [of the pollution] because it was not at the location where the spill was reported to have occurred."

During a press conference on the investigation last week, the Environmental Protection Ministry refused to comment on any of the suspects, noting merely that it was receiving assistance from "shipping authorities in other countries."

Meanwhile, a team from the Israeli Air Force's Shoval drone unit located a new oil spill some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Israel's shores. Earlier Saturday, Defense Minister Benny Gantz authorized the use of the unmanned aircraft to locate the spill, at the request of the Environmental Protection Ministry.

According to initial findings and models generated by the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, the spill is not expected to reach Israel's shores before March 1. Likewise, no international body has alerted Israel to the spill, and the Environmental Protection Ministry reported to the Malta-based Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Center on its findings thus far.

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Following a toxic oil spill that has devastated marine life along Israel's coastal shores, the Health Ministry Wednesday moved to ban the sale of seafood from the Mediterranean Sea.

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The measure takes effect immediately and covers fish and other marine life sold for consumption, according to a ministry statement.

The decree was made "in light of the environmental pollution in the Mediterranean Sea, which has been expressed, among other ways, in the amounts of tar found on the Mediterranean beaches in recent days," the statement said.

The move is a precautionary measure, with data still being collected by the Agriculture Ministry to determine if the spill poses a danger to consumers.

The Environmental Protection Ministry announced significant damage had been caused to Israel's shoreline, with some 30-40% of rocky areas, impacted by the spill. Among the beaches affected were those in Haifa, the Carmel, Achziv, Moshav Betzet, and Rosh Hanikra, all in Israel's north.

Citing concerns water-soluble materials will sink to the seafloor, harming smaller organisms, fish, and marine invertebrates, Professor Noga Kronfeld-Schor, chief scientist at the Environmental Protection Ministry, said, "There may be an accumulation of pollutants in the food chain, and we will soon begin to research and analyze the implications in a national monitoring program."

Of major concern is the upcoming spring bird migration that will see around 500 million birds pass through Israel on their way to Europe and Asia from Africa. The birds could be exposed to pollution, whether through direct contact with the tar or the consumption of local wildlife.

The Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Center took samples from the Mediterranean, Wednesday, in a joint effort with the Health Ministry to ensure Israel's beaches reopen in a safe and timely manner. Ministry officials are collaborating with American scientists who took part in researching the 2020 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to this end.

So far, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority estimates around 70 tons of tar and waste have been collected from Israel's beaches. The majority of the remaining tar is located on rocky beaches, where the cleanup process is more complicated. A majority of sandy beaches, however, are now relatively clean, with just small coin-sized clumps of the pollutant remaining.

Jerusalem on Tuesday approved the allocation of 45 million shekels ($13.7 million) toward a plan to clean up the country's shoreline following the massive spill. The party or parties responsible for the ecological disaster remains unknown.

Authorities have also urged members of the public to avoid beaches on Israel's Mediterranean coast due to the pollution. In a joint notice to the public, the Health, Interior, and Environmental Protection Ministries noted "exposure to tar could harm public health" and called on the public "not to go [to beaches] to swim or engage in sports or leisure activities until further notice."

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Employees at the National Sea Turtle Rescue Center have discovered that mayonnaise is incredibly effective in cleaning out the digestive tracks of sea turtles that were affected by the devastating oil spill that occurred last week.

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The spill, which the Nature and Parks Authority called one of the country's worst ecological disasters on record, coated most of Israel's 120 miles of Mediterranean coastline with sticky tar. It caused extensive damage to wildlife, including sea turtles.

Guy Ivgy, a medical assistant at the rescue center said that 11 turtles were being treated on site. "When the turtles arrived all their trachea from inside and outside was full of tar. We continue to feed them substances like mayonnaise, which practically clean the system and break down the tar."

The recovery process is expected to take a week or two, after which the turtles will be released back into the wild.

Thousands of volunteers have mobilized to remove tar from Israel's beaches, a task that is expected to take months.

Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry said it was investigating the cause of the spill.

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Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Monday said that "a ship of the Israeli enemy" was to blame for the oil spill that has reached Lebanon's southern Mediterranean shores.

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Diab turned to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, to launch an investigation and possibly help with the severe pollution. Diab, who is also his government's minister of environmental protection, said he was "following the developments."

The program director of Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa, Julien Jreissati, called on Lebanon's Ministry of Environment to "take immediate measures to assess the magnitude of the risk of this spill by setting up an urgent survey and monitoring program."

He added: "The authorities must develop a quick plan to reduce the impacts on the environment and public health, and based on the results of the assessment, the authorities should provide safety instructions to the Lebanese people, especially concerning fishing and swimming activities.

Jreissati said the incident added to a long list of oil spills that threaten the rich marine biodiversity and affect the eastern Mediterranean's inhabitants.

"It is a manifestation of the destruction of nature resulting from the addiction of the global systems to fossil fuels," he concluded.

The last oil spill in the region occurred during the 2006 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah following Israeli airstrikes on the Jiyeh Power Station in Lebanon, which spilled some 30 tons of oil into the sea. The incident led the UN General Assembly to issue a non-binding resolution in December of 2014 calling on Israel to pay Lebanon $856.4 million in compensation.

Meanwhile, a Haifa court on Monday ordered the partial lifting of key restrictions that have been placed on the media regarding the mysterious oil spill.

As of Tuesday, it was unclear which merchant vessel was responsible for the spill and what flag it was carrying.

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The investigation into the oil spill that stained Israel's shores last week has been placed under a gag order, the Environmental Protection Ministry announced Saturday. The spill is Israel's worst natural disaster in decades.

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The order, issued by Haifa Magistrates' Court Judge Zaid Falah, is valid for seven days and is comprehensive. As such, it bars any mention of the particulars of the investigation and any details that might identify the suspects.

The court's ruling drew immediate criticism from politicians and environmental organizations alike.

"Hiding all matters that are connected to the investigation of the tar disaster is a fatal blow to the public's trust in the government and its regulators, whose job it is to ensure the safety of the public and the environment," the Israel Union for Environmental Defense said in a statement.

The Environmental Protection Ministry noted that, contrary to reports suggesting otherwise, it received no warning of the disaster in advance, neither by international nor Israeli sources.

The incident was "an environmental crime," which allegedly took place more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) off the coast, outside of  Israel territorial waters, the ministry said.

According to the ministry, as soon as it discovered the spill, it appealed to European allies for assistanace in detecting the source using satellite footage, which revealed 10 possible suspects.

"As soon as we identify and locate the ship [responsible for the disaster,] we will contact the authorities of the relevant country to take action and complete all [necessary legal] proceedings against the suspected ship," the ministry said.

Meanwhile, volunteers continued the beach cleanup operation. Unfortunately, some beaches had to be cleaned a second time as more tar had washed up throughout the night.

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