Haifa oil refinery deemed 'time bomb' – especially after damage caused by Iranian missile strike

Experts have long warned that the Bazan oil refinery in the northern Israeli city of Haifa poses an environmental risk due to its location in a densely populated urban area.

Those concerns gained new urgency earlier this week when the refinery sustained minor damage from debris caused by a fallen Iranian ballistic missile. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said the attack caused “no significant damage to infrastructure sites.”

However, Marcelo Sternberg, professor of Climate Change Ecology at the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security at Tel Aviv University, dismissed the minister’s reassurance.

“It’s actually a time bomb,” Sternberg warned in an interview with The Media Line, acknowledging that “the damage was not major.”

“It’s actually very lucky that the main refinery of petrol in Israel was not very highly damaged,” he added, while emphasizing the long-term risk posed by the facility's location next to a densely populated area.

“This type of oil refinery in a highly populated, dense area close to the city of Haifa,” Sternberg said, was a cause of concern before the war. “There have been a lot of claims before the war against the position of this refinery… because it’s located very close to highly populated neighborhoods.”

While the Iran war adds the risk of a direct missile impact on the oil facility, Sternberg said the Bazan refinery is a threat to the environment.

“The contamination is mainly air contamination, and the hazards that they are polluting daily from the oil refinery are very, very high,” he warned, saying it was like "Russian roulette”.

“You don’t know exactly where the missile will fall and if the [interceptor]oi90 missiles will be able to fully repel the attack or not.”

Looking ahead, he warned that a direct missile hit could have severe consequences for the Haifa metropolitan area, home to over one million people. Sternberg said the resulting fires, explosions, and release of toxic smoke could be deadly.

The Haifa area is considered particularly vulnerable as it is within the reach of both Iranian ballistic missiles and Hezbollah rockets from Lebanon in the north.

“The situation is very, very risky,” Sternberg warned. “The general public, and even the mayor of Haifa [have called] … to move this plant to another place, south of Israel,” he continued, referring to proposals to move the country’s heavy industry to sparsely populated areas in the southern Negev Desert.

“If there is a major impact, definitely a vast part of the population will need to be evacuated,” he warned, citing the potential release of toxic gases in the area following a direct hit.

“This will lead to major movement of people being evacuated to major areas,” he continued.

Sternberg concluded by criticizing the government's inaction, saying, “This is something that people have been claiming a lot, but the government is not interested, unfortunately.”

The refinery continues to operate amid the ongoing conflict, but Sternberg warned that the difference between disaster and safety may rely more on luck than on planning.