Officials warn of jellyfish swarm headed north along Israel’s coast

Authorities are warning of a vast swarm of jellyfish headed northward along Israel’s Mediterranean coast from its current location along the southern beaches around Ashdod and Ashkelon.

There are currently only scattered, individual jellyfish in the waters off Tel Aviv and Haifa, but the numbers will rise as the swarm nears, the government’s Haifa-based Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute says today.

Jellyfish tentacles can sting and inject venom into humans, which usually results in mild to serious discomfort but in certain rare cases can lead to extreme pain or even death.

The jellyfish have already caused problems for electricity and desalination plants along the southern coast over the past month, choking up their filtering systems and stopping seawater, used for cooling in the power plants and to produce fresh water in the desalination plants, from reaching the machinery.