UAE oil deal infuriates Israeli environmentalists
As Israeli relations improve with Gulf states oil tankers have begun quietly arriving at the Israeli port of Eilat on the Red Sea.
It’s a new arrangement with Emirati partners. The ships unload oil to be transferred through a pipeline across Israel to the Mediterranean.
But opponents say the risks to the environment are far too great, due to the fragile coral reef close by.
About a month after Israel normalised ties with the United Arab Emirates last September, Israel's state-owned Europe-Asia Pipeline Company (EAPC) announced the new collaboration.
The companies involved say this land bridge is the shortest, most efficient and cost-effective route to transport oil from the Gulf to the West.
Noa Yayon is from the society for the protection of nature.
"The risks are actually pretty simple, even one percent of a spill from an oil will arrive to the Eilat coral reef and can and possibly will damage it in a way that may be irreversible."
Eilat's coral reef is unique in that it has proved to be more resilient to climate change, when many reefs around the globe are dying.
Fresh in their minds is an offshore oil spill in February that blackened much of Israel's Mediterranean coast with tar.
And in 2014, one of the company's own pipelines ruptured, spilling 5 million litters of crude oil into a desert nature reserve.
It hopes to increase quantities by "tens of millions of tons per year."
The company has not made public details of the deal.
"We have only certain details about the deal, mainly because most of the details are confidential by law and we know just a little bit, but the little bit makes us very anxious, it's enough for us to be very very worried."
The Society for the Protection of Nature together with other groups have petitioned Israel's Supreme Court for a temporary order to freeze the deal.
The state is due to present its official position in the coming days.
