Last update - 00:00 14/11/2007
Nahariya ordered to stop digging graves close to beach
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent
The city of Nahariya was ordered this week to stop digging graves on the
western edge of the municipal cemetery, close to the beach. The decision by the district court represents a partial victory for the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (Adam Teva V'Din), which requested the court's
intervention on the matter several weeks ago.
The court did not, however, instruct the city and its religious council not to bury people in existing graves within family plots in the prohibited zone.
IUED was joined in its court action by the Association For Quality Of Life And Environment In Nahariya. Several alternatives were discussed during the court precedings, including the use of burial space in nearby communities or in the city's military cemetery, but they were rejected due to fierce opposition from area towns and the Defense Ministry, respectively. The only other option available is creating a new cemetery near Kabri Junction, which is in the jurisdiction of the Mateh Asher Regional Council.
The Public Works Authority announced last week that it will build an entrance road from Route 70 to the proposed plot within six months. In the meantime, additional burial space will have to be found within the existing cemetery in Nahariya.
In his ruling, Judge Ron Sokol noted that while even the accelerated
construction of a new cemetery would not solve the city's immediate burial space shortage, permitting new graves to be dug in the western section, beyond the boundaries indicated in the master plan, would be illegal and could endanger public health and welfare