The team inspected the tanker at the port of Piraeus in Greece on Saturday with the full cooperation of Greek authorities.

The ministry announced that it has a list of dozens of ships that could have caused the oil spill. It had checked about 10 ships as of Sunday morning and the investigation is ongoing.

 

“We are committed to making every effort to locate the ship responsible for polluting the shores of Israel,” said Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel. “We have a moral obligation to the public, animals and nature that have been harmed as a result of the pollution. This pollution has an address – we will not ignore this environmental crime and we will take all measures possible in order to identify the offender.”

The Minerva Helen was until now one of the main suspects in the incident. The ship is also suspected of being responsible for a major spill in January 2008 off the coast of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The ship’s owners have denied responsibility for both spills, saying that “during the period that the vessel was drifting offshore of Port Said awaiting her next employment, [it] was not involved in any operation or in any other activity that could be connected to an oil discharge at sea.”

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The oil spill is one of Israel’s worst ecological disasters, with 105 miles (170 kilometers) damaged by the spill. Clean up efforts are ongoing amid concerns of a second oil slick approaching Israel’s coasts.