MK Dov Khenin (Hadash ), who heads the Knesset’s joint health and environment committee, asked State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss to conduct an urgent examination of the Prime Minister’s Office’s allegedly improper involvement in promoting the mining of radioactive phosphate who owns one of the most richest families in Israel – Ofer Group, at Sde Barir.

The phosphate mine planned for Sde Barir in the Negev is likely to cause radioactive pollution in nearby city of Arad, a group of local residents opposed to the mine told the Knesset’s socio-environmental caucus yesterday.

The PMO had previously commissioned a report that found that the mine poses no health risks, though a Health Ministry report reached the opposite conclusion.

“The involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office undermines the Health Ministry’s official report, which found that mining at the site will damage the health of area residents”, Khenin said yesterday. “Financial interests must not be allowed to trample professional reports, including those of Health Ministry experts. We must not abandon the residents of the area, or their health.”

The anti-mine group said exposure to radioactive material would come from dust in the mine area that would be inhaled by residents of Arad and nearby Bedouin areas, causing internal radiation exposure.

Radiation rates measured for the group, called “We Want to Live without Mines”, found radioactivity at an abandoned mine in the area and in the phosphate-rich Sde Barir site to be between two and eight times higher than the permissible rate of exposure to the population.

The group said the data did not come from authorities certified to measure radiation rates, because it was difficult to find others willing to measure the rates since the planned mine has government support.