September 4, 2009

PAJU - Israel uses West Bank as toxic waste dump

Distributed by PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)

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).

 

June 18, 2009

IPS - Canadian Eva Bartlett: Attack on water brings sanitation crisis

While diminishing water resources are a global concern, in Palestine the struggle for water is not against global warming or multinational corporations, but for access to water, and against contamination of what precious resources there are.

The main source of water is the coastal aquifer and ground water, which serves Gaza's agriculture, commercial, industrial and public sectors, says Ahmed. But through the three weeks of Israeli attacks on Gaza last December and January, much of the water network infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, rendering already scarce water all the more scarce.

The destruction caused by Israeli shelling, tanks and bulldozers throughout the Strip further damaged Gaza's sanitation network, causing 150,000 cubic metres of untreated and partially treated sewage waste water to flow over agricultural and residential land and into the sea during the attacks. The daily average of wastewater being pumped into the sea is still a staggering 80,000 cubic metres.

 

August 30, 2008

New Statesman - Besieged by bad smells

After Israel destroyed the main electricity station in 2006, when we are able to generate electricity, it is pumping sewage away from homes that takes priority. This leaves little for treatment."

Today, tide pools and aquatic life continue to deteriorate. As the raw waste settles on the ocean floor it seeps into Gaza's aquifer, contaminating further the area's already overtaxed source of drinking water. "Ninety per cent of Gaza's drinking water is considered polluted under the international standards specified by the World Health Organisation," says Shoblak.

Given time, the contamination will leak over into both Israel and Egypt. This will become an international, rather than a local, ecological, human and economic problem. It's a man-made disaster, unnecessary and wholly solvable.

 

August 20, 2008

BBC News - Truce barely eases Gaza embargo

In the dank basement of one of Gaza's sewage pumping stations, raw sewage sprays out of leaks in the rusting metal work.

The Strip's sewage system is one of many things affecting Gazans' quality of life that urgently needs updating.

"It took months and months of negotiations to get Israel to allow some spare parts through the borders," says Maher al-Najjar, an engineer at the Gaza Emergency Water Project.

 

June 8, 2008

The fuel shortage caused by the long-running Israeli siege crippled Palestinian sewage treatment facilities, already strained by the fast-growing population, forcing officials to divert constant streams of raw and untreated sewage into the Mediterranean.

June 1, 2008

IOL - Gaza siege destroying the environment

There are three main causes for the environmental pollution of the Gaza Strip: the use of cooking oil as a substitute for fuel, the dumping of raw sewage into the sea, and the rubbish accumulating in the streets. ...In addition to pollution of the air, the Gaza population is also suffering from pollution of the sea. Officials in the Gaza Water Authority say they are forced to allow between 45,000 to 50,000 cubic meter of raw sewage to be poured into the Gaza seashores daily.

 

August 22, 2007

CommonDreams - When the Occupation Gets Really Filthy

South of Artas village, sewage from the Gush Etzion settlement bloc is slowly decimating the farming village of Beit Ommar, a small community reliant on its agricultural exports. Next to a vineyard owned by several families in Beit Ommar sits Gush Etzion's sewage treatment facility, surrounded by a fence with barbed wire. Two pipes jut out from the edge of the brackish open water pool, aimed directly at the vineyard.

 

March 24, 2007

Environmental Justice For Palestine

Water, solid waste and wastewater infrastructure were practically non-existent; hence the standard of living in Palestinian localities lagged way behind that enjoyed within Israel and also in other Middle Eastern countries; and poor waste management threatened the environment with serious pollution and degradation. The reason for this was essentially neglect and underinvestment during the Israeli Administration from 1967 to 1993. It is pointed out in the report that the investment in Palestinian infrastructure by the Israeli Civil Administration was not equal to the amount payed in taxes by Palestinians.

 

March 7, 2007

Solidarity - The Water Crisis in Gaza
by Alice Gray

The political rhetoric and frequent violence of the Israeli-Ppalestinian conflict often serve to mask underlying environmental issues which, if not resolved, may pose an even greater threat to the well-being of the Palestinian population than the guns and bombs of the military occupation.

September 10, 2006

Independent UK - Poisonous clouds of pollution spread after Israel air strike

Lebanese minister says damage was deliberate, causing 'an even  bigger disaster than the war itself'

By Geoffrey Lean , Environment Editor

More people will die as a result of pollution unleashed by Israel's  bombing of the Lebanon than perished in the month-long war itself,  the Lebanese government believes.

Yacoub Sarraf, its Environment Minister, speaking exclusively to  The Independent on Sunday, said last week that a highly poisonous   cloud spread over a third of the country - an area that is home to  half its people - from a fire in a bombed fuel tank that burned for  12 days.

The same bombing released about four million gallons of oil into the sea, in the largest ever spill in the eastern Mediterranean. He  insists that the environmental damage was "deliberately" caused. 

Experts say that, if this was so, it would constitute a war crime,  in breach of both the Geneva Convention and the statute of the  International Criminal Court. Israel retorts that any such 
suggestion is "very ridiculous".

The damage began on 13 July, when Israeli rockets hit a fuel  storage tank at the Jiyyeh power station 18 miles south of Beirut.  The government managed to repair the damage and prevent an oil  spill. But two days later, he continued, the rockets returned, not  merely hitting the same tank again - just 25 metres from the sea -  but fatally damaging its protective burm, a concrete and earth  barrier designed to stop any oil spilling from the tank from  reaching the Mediterranean.

"It was definitely deliberate.," he said. "They did not hit the power station, just the fuel storage, and this was the tank that was closest to the sea."

He expects the greatest "catastrophe" from the toxic cloud that was  blown by the prevailing wind over Beirut and one-third of the country. Tests have shown, he says, that it contains high levels of poisonous lead and mercury, and highly dangerous PCBs.

"Not only have we been breathing this for a month, but all the agricultural produce has been subjected to it. Even worse, all these poisons will come down with the rain, and some will seep 
through the soil and give us a polluted water table.

"Then in a couple of years every single citizen in Lebanon will  definitely be subjected to poisonous matter in his drinking water."  He expected more Lebanese to die from the pollution than the 1,300, overwhelmingly civilians, killed in the war. He added that studies  have shown there would be decreased fertility and higher rates of  cancer. "This is a bigger disaster even than the war itself," Mr Sarraf said.

A spokesman for the Israeli government said: "We deny the minister's accusations. They seem to be very ridiculous.

"We never deliberately targeted any civilian capacity or place, we only targeted places or facilities relevant to Hizbollah."

 

September 5, 2006

Greenpeace: "Israel" blockade on Lebanon prevents oil spill clean-up

"Israel" blockade on Lebanon prevents oil spill clean-up. AFP [2006, Sept.5]

The "Israeli" blockade on Lebanon is preventing the widescale intervention needed to clean a massive oil slick caused by the Zionist state's bombardment of a power station, Greenpeace has said.

July 2006

Haaretz - Oil spilled from IAF bombed power plant pollutes Lebanon's coast

A south Lebanon power plant that was knocked down by Israel Air Force planes some two weeks ago caused a massive oil spill along the Beirut's coast. Lebanon has made an urgent request to the UN in recent days for assistance in the ecological crisis.

 

Greenpeace - Let's start with a nuclear weapons free zone

Istanbul , Turkey — Greenpeace is gravely concerned and shares horror at the escalating violence and conflict in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza.

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