A swarm of jellyfish has blocked a desalination facility in Israel. 

Swarms of jellyfish along the coast of Israel have left summer swimmers out of the Mediterranean waters. 

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority says they have also been clogging desalination plants and industrial fishing nets.

“The water gets hotter and hotter and we can see more and more jellyfish,” marine manager Guy Lavian says.  

“They cause real damage here. You can definitely say that global warming contributes to these massive swarms.”

The jellyfish flourish at higher temperatures and typically have to compete for food and habitats with other sea life.

But the Israel Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences (ISEES) says overfishing has helped skew that contest in their favour. 

The Suez Canal - a 150-year-old artificial Egyptian channel - is contributing too, allowing invasive species to travel from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, which is now home to 17 kinds of mostly non-venomous jellyfish. 

Off-shore agricultural fertiliser leaks have also served as nourishment for the jellyfish, the ISEES said.