Noble Energy went to court on Wednesday in an attempt to cancel a temporary injunction that was filed on Tuesday preventing the company from conducting “operations involving gas emissions” at the Leviathan gas field, according to Maariv.
The order, filed by Judge Eli Abarbanel at the Jerusalem District Court, temporarily froze the permit for gas emissions that had been granted to Noble by the Environmental Protection Ministry, Hebrew-language financial newspapers reported.
A hearing will be held on Sunday to address an application filed by the municipalities of Zichron Ya’acov, Jisr e-Zarka, Megiddo, Pardes Hanna and Emek Hefer, together with the Zalul Environmental Association.
Abarbanel wrote that the Environmental Protection Ministry and Noble had not succeeded in disproving the claim that the gas field would cause irreversible damage to public health if operations were not stopped.
The order prevents Noble from beginning the third stage of a test run at the gas field, which the application claims will cause emissions over eight days that would usually only be permitted over a period between 16 and 30 months.