Shuqbah, a village of 5,000, lies near the border of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, not far from Ramallah. Israeli companies have been using land owned by a Palestinian middleman in the village to dump tons of garbage. "The subsequent burning of toxic waste, including items such as x-ray films, releases carcinogens into the environment, and this has affected the population, with many people developing asthma and related illnesses."
"The Israelis earlier buried the carcasses of thousands of chickens infected with the avian flu virus near Nablus in the northern West Bank," said Palestinian Environmental Authority (PEA) deputy director Jamil Mtoor. The PEA also uncovered 500 barrels of insecticide in Hebron in the southern West Bank. Again, a Palestinian middleman had been paid off to accept the barrels on his property.
Israel's illegal settlements (colonies) regularly dump garbage and discharge wastewater into West Bank rivers and streams. The Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ) has stated in a report that the "wastewater includes pesticides, asbestos, batteries, cement and aluminium". Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), a joint Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environmental group, released an investigative report several years ago called "A Seeping Time Bomb: Pollution of the Mountain Aquifer by Solid Waste". According to FoEME's report, unsustainable disposal of solid waste has resulted in the percolation of toxic substances including chloride, arsenic and heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury and lead into the groundwater. "The threat to the drinking water remains to this day," said FoEME spokeswoman Miri Epstein.
Adapted from "West Bank Becomes Waste Land" by Mel Frykberg.
This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS (Inter Press Service) and IFEJ (the International Federation of Environmental Journalists).
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