Environment minister slams data from her own office as ‘fake news’

Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman on Sunday attacked as “fake news” figures issued by her own ministry showing an 83 percent drop in indictments against people violating environmental law on her watch.

In a post on X, she accused Green Course, an environmental organization that had obtained the data through a Freedom of Information request, of being a “radical organization masquerading concern about the environment.”

She noted that the group had in the past organized a conference about the environmental consequences of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza with “other extreme left-wing organizations and (Arab-majority) Hadash (Party)” — headed by MK Ayman Oudeh, whom she accused of being a supporter of terror.

Referring to her decision last year to halt NIS 11 million ($3.9 million) funding for all environmental organizations, she added, “The reason they’re fighting me and the ministry is that their budgets have been completely frozen.”

She cited the deadly Hamas onslaught, during which 1,200 people were killed, and which sparked the war, to add, “Not a single shekel should go to those who care about the well-being of the Gazans who slaughtered us on October 7, 2023.”

The NIS 11 million had already been approved by the Maintenance of Cleanliness Fund, a statutory body established in 1984 and financed from sources including landfill fees and plastic bag levies. Until Silman’s decision to stop it, cash left over at the end of the year was routinely distributed wholly or in part to help fund environmental organizations the following year.

The data that enraged the minister, printed on official Environmental Protection Ministry letterhead and covering 2023 to January 2026, shows that just 34 cases were passed to the ministry’s legal department in 2025, down from 87 in 2023 (and 65 in 2024).

Of the 87 cases sent to the legal department in 2023, 66 were referred to external law firms for treatment, and 30 resulted in charges. In 2024, 47 cases were outsourced to lawyers, with 11 resulting in indictments, while 35 cases were farmed out in 2025, resulting in just five charges.

The formal response to the Freedom of Information request went on to state that the ministry was unable to reveal either the number of files that had been outsourced by the legal department, with work on them subsequently halted,  or the number of files referred to the legal department with a recommendation for indictment. It said excessive resources would be needed for officials to manually review the files from those years.

The figures also show that while there were seven positions for ministry lawyers in each of the three years, the number of people employed dropped from seven in 2024 to five after May 2025, when interviews were being conducted for a sixth.

The ministry’s letter ended with a caveat that the data could be incomplete, given that the systems relied on manual entry that could be inaccurate, inconsistent, or incomplete.

The Times of Israel understands that officials are now reviewing all the figures. The ministry has so far withheld comment on what was published.

A Green Course spokesman said the delay between its receipt of the response and publication of the figures on Sunday was due to a heavy workload.