Palestinian waste fires are 'killing us slowly,' warn Israelis in West Bank

Israelis living in the West Bank warned that illegal waste fires are "killing us slowly," during an emergency discussion concerning illegal waste fires at the Knesset's Interior Affairs Committee on Monday.

"I didn't imagine that I would have to fight to get clean air, our house is closed all the time. My children have an aggravation of hives and tingling in the throat, the neighbors' children have asthma. I don't want to get into a situation of severe and serious illnesses. This is an anxiety that accompanies me every day," said Reut Schechter, a mother of five whose family was one of the first to move into the settlement of Kedem Arava, during the discussion.

"We have been suffering from these fires since our first day, and recently it has increased to the extent that there are fires all day long. The fires can be for days in a row, several days in a row. We report and the feeling is that there is no response. The suffering is daily - you cannot play outside, do sports or go on a walk. We literally leave the children at home and the distress is very, very great. I am a victim of terrorism, my father was killed in a shooting attack when I was a child, but the feeling is the same - a feeling that we are simply being killed, amid great suffering and no one cares."

Trash burning in the West Bank

Trash burning is common in Palestinian towns and cities throughout the West Bank and in many areas across Israel. The chairman of the committee, MK Yakov Asher, noted that plastics and metals are burned in the fires as well and called for heavier enforcement at the crossings through which waste passes and to formulate relevant legislation on the matter.

"It will not become heaven in one day and there will be a follow-up hearing in a month," added Asher. "The enforcement operations in Areas A and B should be increased. There is no question of political issues when people are dying here of diseases."

During the discussion, Israel Police stated that they had launched a large-scale enforcement operation at four waste-burning sites and are expecting to open 120 investigation files and confiscate 57 trucks.

'Illegal burning of waste is one of the main causes of carcinogenic air pollution in Israel'

Yitzhak Kreuzer, chairman of the Otzma Yehudit faction and one of the MKs who initiated the discussion, stated that "Illegal burning of waste is one of the main causes of carcinogenic air pollution in Israel and harms the health and quality of life of millions of residents."

"The fires are mainly caused by criminal or Palestinian elements who derive financial gains from burning the waste in the absence of clean circulation channels. The concentration of fires of electronic waste is concentrated mainly in the area of the Gush Etzion, the Megilot Yam Hamelakh and the Judean Desert regional councils which are caused mainly by Palestinians and lack of enforcement by the Palestinian Authority. We must stop the illegal fires before the residents of the area pay for it with their health."

Shas MK Yonatan Mashriki suggested establishing an implementation team from a number of ministries through local authorities, the Civil Administration and the other parties relevant to the matter. "This phenomenon exists along all the borders of the State of Israel."

Aryeh Cohen, the head of the Megillot Yam Hamelakh Regional Council explained that "We have a lot of smoke coming to us from Jericho, but the problem by us is particularly serious. They light fires and smoke every time, hundreds of meters from our border there is smoke all the time. If they were shooting at us from Jericho, what would they do? IDF soldiers would go eliminate this hotspot. Here they kill us little by little every day. I don't want residents to clash with Palestinians because of a fire."

Yosef Akerman, the deputy director-general of the Forum for Green Israel and a resident of Kedem Arava, explained during the discussion that residents in the area near Jericho and across the West Bank and Israel are "suffering from an unimaginable reality that the citizens of Israel have been suffering from for many years."

"There is an acute need for a directive change on this issue, both in legislation and in orders by major generals and ineffective enforcement," added Akerman. "In recent years, the forum has been promoting comprehensive legislation in the areas of waste that have not been dealt with to date, and in promoting operative moves with the government ministries and the executive branch to stop the hazards. We call on the Environmental Protection Ministry and the Defense Ministry to join hands and change the directives from the ground up in order to address the issue. We are the garbage can of the State of Israel."

Benny Elbaz, an environmental staff officer in the Civil Administration, announced during the discussion that the administration had approved a NIS 540,000 budget to deal with waste in the areas near Jericho last week. The administration also offered the mayor of Jericho NIS 4 million to handle the city's waste for three years.

Former director-general of the Environmental Protection Ministry, Galit Cohen, told KAN last month that the ministry had invested thousands of shekels to give to the Civil Administration to pass on to the Palestinian Authority to gather the waste from 72 villages, but the PA had refused to accept the funds.

In May of last year, the Environmental Protection Ministry and Nature and Parks Authority announced that after a special unit was established to combat waste fires in open areas, the number of fires decreased by 30%.

The 2021 pollution report published by the Environmental Protection Ministry's Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) last August found that illegal waste fires caused 43% of the air pollution in Israel in 2021, with another 33% caused by the legal burning of agricultural waste.

Between 2018 and 2021, the amount of pollution caused by the burning of municipal waste rose by 28%, with 12,762 waste fires reported in 2021. A 218% increase was reported in pollution caused by the burning of agricultural waste.