Eighteen former employees at the nuclear reactor in Dimona have charged in a lawsuit that they developed cancer as a result of a 1968 nuclear accident at the top-secret, Negev-based plant.
The claim surfaced Friday on Israel Television, when the lawyer for one of the employees, Barak Ben-Amos, went public with the suit.
Ben-Amos claimed that he was exposed to dangerous levels of radiation when he and other workers were called upon to clean up the plant after the accident.
Ben-Amos stopped working at the plant soon after the alleged accident in 1968. He underwent radical stomach surgery at the end of 1991 for the removal of a cancerous growth.
Gideon Frishtik, his lawyer, said his client is seeking approximately $330,000 in damages from the plant.
Frishtik said he knew of at least 18 other employees and former employees who had experienced medical problems similar to his client’s.
One of these workers, Avraham Benvenisti, also appeared on television Friday and asserted that he had developed cancer of the bladder and had been operated on for the condition in 1988.
Benvenisti had worked at the plant for 30 years, and is also filing a damage suit against the plant.
According to news reports, Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission denied on Sunday that any radiation had been leaked during the 1968 incident.
The agency rejected the workers’ claim, saying the nuclear site is one of the world’s safest.
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