Video of animal cruelty at Israeli abattoir sparks outrage in Australia

An Australian veterinarian has been placed in control of a major Israeli abattoir after video images emerged of cattle and sheep being brutally slaughtered.

Hidden camera footage, released in Australia on Tuesday, showed cattle having their tails crushed and being hoisted by one leg while other animals, also conscious, being released onto a rolling table after having their throats slit.

In response, Australian companies Livestock Shipping Services and Otway Livestock Exports have moved in to take over the abattoir in Deir Al Asad, which is owned by the Dabbah family. They have installed the vet as part of this process.

The Israeli abattoir has sacked slaughtermen and reprimanded managers in response to the footage.

The Australian exporters have conceded a breakdown in management had occurred and have taken over the Dabbah facility until further notice to revise training procedures.

Otway supplied 4,000 cattle to Israel in the past 12 months, but expects to dramatically increase that number to meet the demand of 70,000 per year.

Rights group Animals Australia, which shot the footage and filed a complaint with Australia's Department of Agriculture a fortnight ago, has called on the department to make remote access to CCTV cameras mandatory for all Australian-accredited slaughterhouses.

The video reveals similar cruel and disturbing procedures to that of a video shot three years ago at the only other Australian- approved abattoir in Israel.

Similar barbaric scenes played out in an Indonesian slaughterhouse in 2011, leading to the suspension of the lucrative live cattle trade to Indonesia and the set-up of regulatory framework to ensure Australia's live exports were treated humanely.

Animals Australia chief investigator Lyn White said the abattoir was fitted with CCTV cameras however the cameras could only be accessed onsite.

"Not even the presence of CCTV cameras could deter workers from breaking tails and failing to check that animals were unconscious before hoisting them to the ceiling for processing," White said in a statement on Tuesday.

With the latest video coming weeks after it emerged a Vietnamese abattoir was using sledgehammers, White said the Israeli video proved Australia's live export auditor, the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System, was a failure.

"That Australian cattle could be subjected to such abuse in an approved abattoir presents further evidence that this system is fatally flawed," White said. Endi