Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry said on Thursday it had blocked an agreement with partners from the United Arab Emirates to transport oil from the Gulf to Europe via an Israeli coastal city with endangered coral reefs.
This announcement could lead to the cancellation of the agreement, one of the largest agreements that resulted from the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE last year.
Environmental activists petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to block the agreement.
The agreement - signed between a state-owned company in Israel and a project jointly owned by Emirati and Israeli investors - allows oil that is discharged from tankers at the Red Sea port of Eilat to be transported via Israel in an already existing pipeline to the Mediterranean coast.
In response to the petition to the Supreme Court, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's government said it would not interfere, and would instead allow the Ministry of Environmental Protection to carry out its regulatory role to limit activities that pose risks to the environment.
"We have obstructed the entry of dozens of oil tankers into the Gulf of Eilat," Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg said in a statement, adding that Israel "will not become a bridge to pollution in the era of the climate crisis."
The Israeli energy minister had previously opposed the deal, also due to environmental concerns.
There was no immediate comment from the two signatories to the deal, Israel's state-owned Europe-Asia Pipeline (EAPC) and Med-Red Land Bridge, which is jointly owned by Emirati and Israeli investors.