Invasion Alert: Tens of millions of Nomadic jellyfish heading to Israel’s coasts

Hundreds of kilometers long, the swarm of Nomadic jellyfish are expected to reach Israel in a few days.

By World Israel News Staff

It’s a problem Israel faces every summer – jellyfish.

This one looks to be particularly bad as a giant army of the tentacled creatures are slowly being drawn toward Israel’s coasts, the Walla! news site reports.

The exact number of jellyfish, referred to as medusot in Israel, is unknown. It could be in the tens of millions, researchers say, according to Walla!

They’re expected to reach shore in a few days. Already in Israel’s south, stings have been reported.

The most common type of jellyfish Israel sees are Nomadic jellyfish. They are light blue and can be mistaken for plastic bags floating in the water, a painful mistake for swimmers.

Nomadic jellyfish trail poisonous tentacles to catch plankton. They are extremely painful. Treatment recommendations vary from a mixture of baking soda and water to applying a cold pack.

Washing with seawater is not always recommended as it might be filled with tiny jellyfish, a thought that likely sends shivers through most beachgoers’ spines.

One person who is not upset about the jellyfish invasion is Dr. Dror Angel of the Institute for Maritime Studies at Haifa University.

“They are part of nature and they’ve been here for hundreds of millions of years,” he told Walla! “They have a role: they clean the sea, they serve as food for a wide variety of marine creatures, such as sea turtles and fish, and also people can make from them healthy food and cosmetics.

“In Israel, they’re already working on the innovative development of the use of their droplets for cleaning micro-plastic waste, for example, in sewage treatment plants.”

Apparently, jellyfish did not always come to Israel.  The problem first began in the 1970s when Egypt’s Aswan Dam stopped the freshwater from the Nile, which kept saltwater species from the region.