Haifa Mayor Blocks 'Polluting Factories'

The mayor of Haifa has ordered municipal trucks to block the entrances to city factories cited in an Israeli Health Ministry report as contributing to a huge increase in child cancer cases due to air pollution.

Mayor Yona Yahav insisted that the polluting companies had to cease work immediately, if the Health Ministry report was correct. Mayor Yahav also demanded that the Israeli government officials who released the report to the media had better explain immediately if the data in the report is not correct, YNET reported.

The mayor and local activists are pointing fingers about whose fault it is that the numbers are so appalling for Haifa residents.

The health ministry report revealed that Haifa has double the number of childhood cancer rates than other cities in Israel, and that air pollution is the contributing factor.

Local health activists are claiming that the mayor had turned a blind eye to the dramatic increase in cancer rates, suggesting that large donations from various factory owners and developers for various municipal projects helped to shield the polluters in the past.

Protesters demanded the mayor's resignation over the news.

The mayor, for his part, claimed that the government ministries refused to share with the municipal government the list of plants responsible for the pollution and the corresponding contamination levels.

The Health Ministry report also showed that Haifa residents have a 29 percent higher risk of contracting lung cancer than do other Israelis.