Speaking at a parliamentary committee on the country's preparedness for quakes, Shas MP Shlomo Benizri lashed out at homosexuality, considered an abomination under Jewish law and in its religious text, the Gemara.

'We are looking for earthly solutions, how to prevent them,' Mr Benizri said.

'I have another way to prevent earthquakes. The Gemara says that one of the reasons earthquakes happen - which the Knesset (parliament) legitimises - is homosexuality.'

'God says you shake your genitals where you are not supposed to and I will shake my world in order to wake you up,' he added.

The Israeli parliament decriminalised homosexuality in 1988, and has since passed several laws recognising gay rights.

A tremor measuring 5.0 on the open-ended Richter scale rocked Israel and the region on Friday, drawing new warnings by seismology experts in the country of a major earthquake within years because of a major faultline in the region. -- AFP