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The conduct of the tanker raises suspicion, but the likelihood of deliberate pollution on the part of Iran is small

The Minister of Environmental Protection was quick to accuse "environmental terrorism" of the ship from which the tar was ejected to the shores, but the findings on the ground do not strengthen its claim.

The shipping lane and the small amount of oil it emitted dispel the suspicion that this was a deliberate action.

Former Navy official says "more likely to have happened"

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• tar

• Ministry of the Environment

• Iran

• Gila Gamliel

Yoav Itiel

Thursday, 04 March 2021, 06:20 Updated: 06:24

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In the video: Gamliel - the ship responsible for the oil pollution is a pirate ship owned by a company from Libya (Photo: GPO)

About two weeks have passed since the lumps of tar began to accumulate off the coast of Israel until last night (Wednesday) the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced that the ship responsible for the ecological disaster had been located.

However, despite the minister's claim, Gamliel revealed that Iran was behind the pollution created by the Libyan-owned ship Emerald, some doubted the malice of the act, and claimed that it was a malfunction.

The ship is an oil tanker sailing under the Panamanian flag, which according to its records is owned by Libyan Oil Career Limited, a Libyan company.

Before that he sailed with the flag of Malta.

It was built in 2002 in Korea and launched under the name "Golden Star", and immediately afterwards was renamed "Pocket Spirit".

In 2006 she changed her name to "Ivan Batuta".

The investigation team of the Ministry of Environmental Protection said that it had formulated the following situation: The emerald tanker is old, about 19 years old, and therefore cannot be accepted at European or United States ports.

It carries 112,000 tons of crude oil.

The ministry says that between January 14 and 18, it claimed oil in a port in the Persian Gulf that had not yet been named, and from there set out for the Mediterranean, which it had not visited for the past eight years.

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It is possible that the oil pollution it created was due to a malfunction.

The emerald ship under its former name EBN BATUTA (Photo: Official Website, www.vesselfinder.com)

At the press conference held by Gamliel, she strongly claimed that this was an attack of "environmental terrorism."

However, the field is skeptical about this claim.

"When you start analyzing things it doesn't look like a terrorist incident at all," he told Walla!

"Colonel Uri Distnik, former commander of Squadron 7.

" According to the data, this is a ship that probably moved towards the Banias area in central Syria, passed through the economic waters of the State of Israel, which is hostile and under Israeli control, so it may need testing, "he added. He said, "If they are smuggling fuels then they are likely to try to disappear from the radar and any other means of detection.

For us, it should not interfere with the site and monitor such a ship as long as it is in the area.

"" In my opinion this is not a terrorist incident, "he added," If the target was a terrorist attack she would probably run away immediately after carrying it out, instead of delaying almost two weeks before You will have to return to its base through Israel's economic waters.

A 'terrorist attack' would probably have been done on the way back as well. "Distnik added that" the quantity is also relatively negligible, less than a percentage of its contents.

If they wanted to carry out an attack, they would pour all their luggage into the water.

"Besides, it takes a very high level of understanding and monitoring of the behavior of an oceanographic system in the Mediterranean to put a stain on one place and predict where it will go."

"The State of Israel is insufficiently prepared for such cases."

Tar emitted in the Atlit Galim Beach Nature Reserve (Photo: Nature and Parks Authority, Yigal Ben-Ari)

Colonel Distnik, who previously served as chairman of the Association of Cities for the Environment Sharon Carmel, explained that "it is much more likely that there was a malfunction that happened to the ships, or that they released fuel from some operational need."

He stressed, "This incident revealed how unprepared our environmental protection system is for such cases. Serious incidents of this magnitude have already occurred in the world, the damage is known, and unfortunately the State of Israel is insufficiently prepared, neither in monitoring nor preventing such pollution as we experienced."

The Ministry of Environmental Protection claims that satellite image analyzes and model runs performed by the ministry's researchers, the staff of the Institute for Marine and Lake Research and the staff of the Israeli company Windward, show that the ship smuggled crude oil from Iran to Syria.

The tanker came from Iran with the lights out and without a system AIS system (Automatic location - XI.) Before she reached the Suez Canal tanker fire systems, through the Canal area of Egypt, and before entering Israel's economic waters extinguished them.

According to the ministry, Event spilling crude oil It happened in the 23 hours that the ship's instruments were off, between February 1 and 2, when it sailed north within tens of kilometers of the shores of Israel, but in its economic waters. When it reached the Syrian region, it relit the instruments, cruising between 3 and 14. In February off the coast of the country and unloaded all the crude oil it had to other vessels that came to it with off

devices.Documentation shows that the ship started on its way back from there in the afternoon on the 14th of the month.Automatic reports indicate that the ship sank rose from 14.3 m on its way back, Indicates a cargo of about 700,000 barrels, to 8.5 m on its way back - an indication that it unloaded its oil cargo.

Satellite imagery shows that the tanker escaped crude oil from Iran to Syria.

The route of the ship (Photo: screenshot, without)

Meanwhile, European satellites found documentation of a spot that appeared on February 5, about 70 km off the coast of Israel, in a location that could be associated with this tanker. There is a possibility that this is an early incarnation of the spot that appeared on the 11th of the month about 50 km. From off the coast of Israel, and according to the models was the source of the lumps of tar that landed on the shores of Israel.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection notes that in retrospect, satellites discovered two more spots in the area where the ship was between Cyprus and Syria.

The ship returned to Iran the same way it arrived, through Israel's economic waters, until it reached a port in the Persian Gulf that was not named, and according to the ministry, is still anchored there today.

"No one had prior information about a suspicious stain that led to the incident, which was first discovered only when the tar blocks landed on the shores of Israel on February 17," the Ministry of Environmental Protection says again.

"Therefore, all incident analysis is retrospective, through tracking of ship data and satellite imagery."

More on Walla!

Minister Gamliel: The ship responsible for the tar disaster was owned by Libya and left Iran

To the full article

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The director of the Ministry of Environmental Protection's marine unit, Rani Amir, led the investigation led by the head of the special investigation team, Rami Peleg, together with Nir Lewinsky, the chief investigator, Adv. Yoni Shamir of the Ministry of Environmental Protection's Green Police, Maayan Haim and Yoav Ratner of the Marine Unit. Research Institute of Oceanography and a member of Windward Israel, and combined with data from foreign agencies like NOAA American and EMSA Europe.

Amir admitted that there is no team of researchers evidence "overwhelming" Iranian involvement intentional, but circumstantial evidence only and may be a fault.

"ministry of the environment together with "The Shipping and Ports Authority will ensure that the State of Israel demands compensation from the International Fund and also addresses the insurers of the Emerald tanker," Minister Gamliel promised at a press conference before allegations were made that this was not a deliberate act. In nuclear weapons or by attempting to establish ourselves within our borders.

"Iran is using terrorism by harming the environment."

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