In December 2014, a major oil spill occurred in the vicinity of Be'er Ora Israel, with an estimated 3-5 million liters of crude oil leaking from a breached pipeline, contaminating much of the Evrona nature reserve. An Environmental Protection Ministry official stated that the cleanup would likely take years, and that the spill was one of the gravest natural disasters in the country's history. On December 9, 2014,

Ofir Akunis Ofir Akunis (; born 28 May 1973) is an Israeli politician and diplomat. Since May 2024 he has been the Israeli Consul General in New York, his first diplomatic posting. As a politician, Akunis served as a member of the Knesset for Likud and was ...

was appointed as the deputy environmental protection minister. Akunis replaced

Amir Peretz Amir Peretz (; born 9 March 1952) is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Israeli Labor Party, Labor Party. A Knesset member almost continuously from 1988 to 2021, he has served as Ministry of Defense (Israel), ...

, who resigned from his post at the helm of the ministry. The appointment by Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...

's office came a week after the massive crude oil spill in Israel's Arava region. Akunis said that "it is the deputy minister's intention to prioritize treatment of the ecological disaster in the south and to do all that is necessary to prevent the spread of the crude oil, and to prevent a health and environmental disaster." Akunis ordered crews to raise the side walls of the dams that had been built in the Arava to prevent flooding. Thanks to the infrastructure that had already been built in the area, the risk that the oil would reach the

Gulf of Eilat The Gulf of Aqaba () or Gulf of Eilat () is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. Its coastline is divided among four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. ...

significantly dropped. Akunis instructed that the reserve remain closed as long as high values of pollutants were still registered in air quality tests. In the end of December 2014, the government approved a NIS 17 million Environmental Protection Ministry plan to rehabilitate. According to Akunis, program would serve to treat the soils contaminated by the spill, as well as help restore the wildlife populations damaged over the course of the event. As part of the plan, a special team would be appointed to evaluate the environmental impact of various

Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company The Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company (, also known as the Europe Asia Pipeline Company and by the acronym EAPC) operates several crude petroleum and refined petroleum products Pipeline transport, pipelines in Israel, most notably the Trans-Israel p ...

activities on both dry land and beaches. The approved plan also involved opening a closed Eilat beach on EAPC-owned property to the city's residents and visitors. In January 2015, air quality tests found that there had been a 90% reduction of pollution in Evrona.

References

{{reflist 2014 in the environment 2014 in Israel Oil spills in Asia Environmental disasters in Asia Environmental issues in Israel 2014 disasters in Israel