The Kishon River ( he, נחל הקישון, ; ar, نهر المقطع, , or , – ''the river of slaughter'' or ''dismemberment''; alternative Arabic, ) is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

that flows into the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

near the city of

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

Course

The Kishon River is a -long

perennial stream A perennial stream is a stream that has continuous flow of surface water throughout the year in at least parts of its catchment during seasons of normal rainfall, Water Supply Paper 494. as opposed to one whose flow is intermittent. In the abse ...

in Israel. Its farthermost source is the Gilboa mountains, and it flows in a west-northwesterly direction through the

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the he, עמק יזרעאל, translit. ''ʿĒmeq Yīzrəʿēʿl''), or Marj Ibn Amir ( ar, مرج ابن عامر), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern Distr ...

, emptying into the

Haifa Bay The Bay of Haifa or Haifa Bay ( he, מפרץ חיפה, ''Mifratz Heifa''), formerly Bay of Acre, is a bay along the Mediterranean coast of Northern Israel. Haifa Bay is Israel's only natural harbor on the Mediterranean. ''Haifa Bay'' also re ...

in the

. Its

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

, of , includes much of Jezreel Valley and the Western Galilee, and parts of Mount Carmel.

Biblical references

The Kishon is mentioned six times in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Judges ,

Sisera Sisera ( he, סִיסְרָא ''Sîsərā'') was commander of the Canaanite army of King Jabin of Hazor, who is mentioned in of the Hebrew Bible. After being defeated by the forces of the Israelite tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali under the com ...

's Canaanite army is encamped at the Kishon River and the prophet

Deborah According to the Book of Judges, Deborah ( he, דְּבוֹרָה, ''Dəḇōrā'', "bee") was a prophetess of the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel and the only female judge mentioned in the Bible. Many scholars ...

predicts their defeat; in , in her song of celebration, the Kishon River is praised for washing away the Canaanite army. *

1 Kings The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the book ...

names the Kishon River as the site where the prophets of

Baal Baal (), or Baal,; phn, , baʿl; hbo, , baʿal, ). ( ''baʿal'') was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied t ...

were executed on

Elijah Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My El (deity), God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic language, Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) w ...

's orders, following Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal nearby on Mount Carmel ().

Modern history

Following the end of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

there was an increase in the number of Jewish

settler A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer. Settl ...

s arriving in Palestine, the

Third Aliyah The Third Aliyah ( he, העלייה השלישית, ''HaAliyah HaShlishit'') refers to the third wave—or aliyah—of modern Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe. This wave lasted from 1919, just after the end of World War I, until 19 ...

. Those who arrived at Haifa were kept in a tented

Quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...

Camps set up on the Kishon estuary. Many of the immigrants, '' Halutzim'', were infected with

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

for which the area was notorious. Under the British Mandate the area became

's industrial zone with a power station, railway workshops and the

Iraq Petroleum Company The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It is jointly owned by some of the worl ...

refinery A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value. Types of refineries Different types of refineries ...

Pollution

Considered the most polluted river in Israel by several government authorities on the matter, it has been the subject of controversy regarding the struggle to improve the water quality. The pollution stems in part from daily contamination for over 40 years with mercury, other heavy metals, and

organic chemical In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. The ...

s by nearby chemical plants. It was claimed in 2000, that there are more chemicals than water in the river, and that washing one's hands in this river can cause severe chemical burns. On several occasions this river (or rather, patches of petrochemical waste on it) has caught fire from the chemical contaminants. Below Histadrut Bridge ( Highway 4), after passing the petrochemical industries zone, the pH was 3 or below for most of the time in 2001. A 2002 study found the ability of 3 hours' exposure to Kishon River water to induce DNA damage in rainbow-trout liver-cells to be on average threefold that of unpolluted water. Notably the lower Kishon, below the petrochemical industry zone, had a markedly elevated

genotoxic Genotoxicity is the property of chemical agents that damage the genetic information within a cell causing mutations, which may lead to cancer. While genotoxicity is often confused with mutagenicity, all mutagens are genotoxic, but some genotoxic s ...

potential. A 2000 analysis of the river water revealed

chlorinated In chemistry, halogenation is a chemical reaction that entails the introduction of one or more halogens into a compound. Halide-containing compounds are pervasive, making this type of transformation important, e.g. in the production of polyme ...

compounds in discharges from the refineries, the municipal

sewage treatment Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable for discharge to the surrounding e ...

plant and from the Haifa Chemicals fertilizer production plant. Heavy metals were present in the discharges from the Carmel Olefins and Haifa Chemicals plants. The upper river system may also be mixed with genotoxic materials from

domestic waste Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, a ...

and

agricultural runoff Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The pol ...

that contain pesticides and fertilizers. Potent genotoxins usually found in domestic wastes also include

N-nitroso In organic chemistry, nitrosamines (or more formally ''N''-Nitrosamines) are organic compounds with the chemical structure , where R is usually an alkyl group. They feature a nitroso group () bonded to a deprotonated amine. Most nitrosamin ...

compounds and

aromatic amine In organic chemistry, an aromatic amine is an organic compound consisting of an aromatic ring attached to an amine. It is a broad class of compounds that encompasses aniline Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consi ...

s, which are known to be present in human sanitary outflows as well as genotoxic PAHs found in municipal discharges. (2002): Genotoxicity of the Kishon River, Israel: the application of an in vitro cellular assay. ''Mutation Research'' 518(1): 21–37. (HTML abstract) As of January 4, 2016; 1,000,000 cubic meters per year of potable water is added to the Kishon River, & had decreased concentrations of salts, nitrates, & phosphates, by over 50%. This flow will be replaced by the Jezreel Valley springs, as their flow is removed from irrigation.

Cleanup

In 2012, the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection launched a tender to clean up the Kishon river in a project costing NIS 220 million. Much of the funding for the project came from the companies responsible for the pollution. The Canadian company EnGlobe Corp. began work in 2012 to clean up the river. The cleanup project is to be concluded in 2015.

Shayetet 13

PikiWiki Israel 23521 Israel Defense Forces

Since 2001, it was discovered that Shayetet 13 veterans had high occurrence of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, probably due to training in the polluted Kishon River and

. A commission for investigating the matter did not find statistical evidence that diving in the Kishon caused the cancers. However, despite the commission findings, the Defense Ministry decided to compensate select litigants. A new probe initiated in December 2021 concluded in February 2022 that the veterans had been exposed to a high amount of toxic chemicals, and it was subsequently decided to provide compensation to anyone who had trained in the Kishon River and fallen ill.Defense Ministry to recognize soldiers who swam in toxic river as disabled veterans
/ref>

References

External links

Kishon River Authority
(Hebrew)
Eco Park For A Green Peace
{{Coord, 32, 49, N, 35, 02, E, display=title, region:IL_type:river_source:GNS-enwiki Rivers of Israel Hebrew Bible rivers Geography of Haifa History of Haifa Environmental issues in Israel