Ariel University campus
Ariel University campusFlash 90

Ariel University's plan to open Israel's sixth medical school next year suffered a major blow after Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber ordered the school to freeze its plans amid claims of conflict of interest.

Zilber ordered Ariel University on Thursday to "refrain from taking irreversible steps to establish the faculty" and to update students that had registered "that the establishment of the faculty is now under examination".

Zilber says that the vote to approve the new medical school in the Council of Higher Education was improper due to an alleged conflict of interests. One of the members of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, Dr. Rivka Wadmany Shauman, had voted at the time in favor of establishing the faculty of medicine at Ariel University - despite the fact that she was a candidate to teach in the institution as part of the teacher training program.

Zilber now says that the Council of Higher Education must hold another vote to approve the medical school. The Planning and Budgeting Committee had voted in July 4-2 to approve the establishment of a medical school in Ariel University.

The new program would have become Israel's sixth medical school, joining other programs at the Hebrew ‎University Tel Aviv University, Ben-‎Gurion University, the Technion, and Bar Ilan University's medical school in Safed.