Israel’s environmental colonialism causes cancer

Israeli dumping and burning of electronic waste in West Bank causes rise in cancer, birth defects

by Nadda Osman, New Arab

A rise in Israeli electronic waste that is being sorted and burned in the occupied West Bank, near Palestinian towns, has been decried as “environmental colonialism” while fuelling concerns over risks to the health of Palestinians civilians, as cancer spreads, babies are born with birth defects, and workers are injured handling dangerous materials.

According to engineer Bahjat Jabarin, the director general of environmental protection at the Palestinian environmental quality authority, 90 per cent of electronic waste that ends up in the West Bank originates from Israel, with most of it smuggled in through towns and settlements along the western border of the Hebron governorate.

Jabarin estimates that the amount of electronic waste taken to the West Bank equates to around 1,000 tonnes a day, and includes any items that have a power source or use batteries.

Palestinians have long argued that the practice ensures that Israel develops land that is safe and protected for future settlements, while exploiting Palestinian land and forcing people to leave as pollution increases.

Nouraldin Araj, a Ramallah-based Palestinian researcher who focuses on Israeli environmental violence, said electronic waste being dumped in the West Bank is due to a “deliberately maintained structural legal gap”.

“In other words, the difference does not come from a ban that exists on one side and not on the other. It comes from the absence of environmental legislation on one side of the Green Line and its strict enforcement on the other,” Araj told The New Arab, adding that this gap has deepened over time.

According to Araj, this phenomenon is called “environmental state exception,” which results in strict environmental regulations inside Israel and a legal vacuum only a few kilometres away.

One example cited is the Geshuri pesticide factory, which was shut down in 1982 due to pollution and chemical emissions, but was then relocated to Palestinian cities such as Tulkarem, where it operated with almost no environmental oversight.

“The flow of waste disrupts the relationship between indigenous communities and their environment. It does so quietly but effectively. It makes the land smell unbearable, raises fears about crops and livestock, contaminates soil and water, and gradually pushes people away from their land—not through direct expulsion, but by making everyday life increasingly difficult,” Araj told The New Arab.

Smuggling waste to the West Bank

The issue has been further exacerbated by the expansion of black-market smuggling networks, with Israelis doing this to bypass economic costs and strict regulations.

“For more than fifteen years, towns in southern Hebron such as Idhna, Beit Awwa, Deir Samet, and al-Koum have become central hubs. Israeli companies lease land from Palestinian owners or work through Palestinian intermediaries and truck drivers—some of whom hold Israeli IDs—to transport hundreds of thousands of tons of electronic waste each year,” Araj explained.

These transports sometimes take place at night, with license plates covered, or can happen openly during the day. Often, Israeli authorities will stop the vehicles only for security inspections at checkpoints, rather than prevent them from dumping the waste in the West Bank.

Experts have long argued that this violates international laws, as the Basel Convention, which went into force in 1992, prohibits the cross-border movement of hazardous waste, unless the country exporting it receives written consent prior – something which the West Bank has never done, as an occupied territory.

Cancer, radioactivity, and birth defects

As well as damage to the environment and agriculture, the rise of Israeli electronic waste being dumped in the West Bank has caused major health problems for locals.

Abdul Rahman al-Tmaizi, the director of public relations and media at Idhna Municipality, previously told The New Arab that two workers had died because of a suspicious item exploding during the sorting and dismantling process, noting that workers often cannot distinguish dangerous materials.

According to Araj, based on Palestinian figures, the town of Idhna in the south of Hebron governorate receives between 200 and 500 tons of electronic waste every day. The waste is burned in more than 25 large workshops, 60–70 medium-sized workshops, around 100 small workshops, and more than 200 home-based operations.

“The health data is alarming. Lung cancer is the most common cancer among men in the West Bank, accounting for 22.8% of all male cancer cases,” Araj said.

The burning of electronic waste also releases dioxins, while heavy metals such as chromium, manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, and lead contaminate soil and groundwater.

However, Araj says that due to the rise in burning of electronic waste in the West Bank, the risks now go beyond cancer.

“In the village of Shuqba, a paediatrician and a pharmacist told me that in 2021 alone there were 21 cases of birth defects, alongside a noticeable rise in miscarriages, infertility-related consultations, and the use of respiratory inhalers,” Araj continued.

Iyad al-Rajoub, a 50-year-old copywriter from the village of al-Koum, told The New Arab that he has suffered from bronchial sensitivity for a decade, and his brother died of cancer aged 39.

“Imagine our lives. At first, we would close the windows when smoke spread, but as time passed, we got used to it, and it became part of our daily lives,” he said.

Dr Muhammed Jamil Farajallah, an internal medicine and cardiology specialist at Hebron Governmental Hospital, and who also lives in the town of Idhna, said he has noticed a doubling of cancers over the last two decades, mostly found in the lungs and bladder.

“We are facing a health and environmental catastrophe that will worsen over time. In my belief, Idhna is one of the Palestinian towns with the highest cancer cases, as hardly a month goes by without someone being diagnosed,” he explained.

“The high levels of toxic lead that seeps into the soil, or emissions from burning that spread in the air, including carbon monoxide, have all contributed to cancer in the lungs, bladder, bones, brain, and blood,” he added.