The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns of the deteriorating humanitarian conditions of over 2 million Palestinians, as the Gaza Strip turns into a hotspot for the most dangerous environmental and health disasters. This is due to the accumulation of hundreds of thousands of tons of waste across the Gaza Strip and the inability to dispose of it safely, which is an alarming indicator of potential serious threats threatening to the environment and public health.This coincides with the absence of essential services due to Israel’s deliberate destruction of more than 80% of Gaza’s vital infrastructure, the destruction of solid waste management and sewage treatment systems, as well as the prevention of specialized teams from collecting and transporting waste from temporary and improvised landfills near residential areas and overcrowded shelters to the main landfills located near the Gaza Strip’s eastern borders.
PCHR emphasizes that since the onset of its military aggression on the Gaza Strip 18 months ago, Israel has systematically targeted and destroyed all aspects of life in Gaza and has deliberately used environmental pollution as an abhorrent weapon of war against Palestinians by turning the areas and communities, where more than 1.9 million Palestinians sought refuge, into open landfills. As a result, people are forced to live amid piles of waste encircling their tents. Through these acts, Israel clearly intends to expose Palestinians to deadly life and environmental conditions fraught with health risks, as part of its ongoing acts of genocide aimed at undermining Palestinians’ life and erasing their existence in the Gaza Strip by turning the latter into unlivable zone. This constitutes a blatant violation of Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which prohibits inflicting life conditions calculated to bring the physical destruction of a group, in whole or in part. These acts also reflect Israel’s clear disregard for the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in this regard.
According to PCHR’s field follow-up, vast areas of public land and spaces deep into the city centers across the Gaza Strip have been turned into waste dumps. In Gaza City, the “Firas Market” and “Al-Yarmouk” areas are now hosting the largest landfills. The Gaza Municipality1 has recently warned that the Firas Market dump has become a severe environmental and health hazard for residents, particularly due to the accumulation of over 130,000 tons of waste. This raises serious concerns about potential disease outbreaks, especially amid soaring temperatures, the spread of insects and rodents, and the acute shortage of sanitation and disinfection supplies. Meanwhile, the risk of groundwater contamination continues to grow due to the seepage of toxic waste leachate into the soil and aquifer. It is worth noting that the groundwater has become the last remaining source of water for Gaza’s residents amid the scarcity of other water sources, following Israel’s cutoff of water supplies and the widespread destruction of Gaza’s water infrastructure.
Eng. Tareq al-Habash, Executive Director of the Joint Services Council for Solid Waste Management in Central Gaza Strip, Khan Younis, and Rafah, told PCHR’s researcher:“Our teams are facing immense challenges in waste management, as our services have collapsed since the first day of the aggression. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) deliberately continue to obstruct our teams’ work by refusing to coordinate their access to the main landfills in the eastern Gaza Strip and preventing the transfer of more than 500,000 tons of accumulated waste from over 200 makeshift dumps scattered across the most densely populated areas west of Salah al-Din Street, which are overcrowded with displaced people. This has created an ongoing disaster that is further exacerbated by the lack of basic protection and sanitation supplies, along with Israel’s ban on the entry of rodent and insect control materials, which are now listed among the prohibited items.”
Al-Habash added: “We are now unable to access to the main landfills in Al-Fukhari and Juhor al-Dik areas after they went out of service. Al-Fukhari sanitary landfill, which was established with funding from the World Bank, was bombed by the IOF, and all its facilities were destroyed during the first weeks of the aggression. The heavy machinery at al-Fukhari landfill, including bulldozers, loaders, compactors, as well as storage rooms, maintenance workshops, and spare parts warehouses were completely destroyed. We have not been able to access the landfill since then as it lies in the military buffer zone, east of Rafah. We are still suffering from the consequences of this destruction. Today, we have only 6 trucks operating out of 20, which have been either destroyed or have been broken down requiring maintenance due to the continued closure of crossings, fuel shortages, and the ban on the entry of containers, trucks, batteries, maintenance equipment, spare parts, and sanitation materials needed for the landfills.”
Before the war, local waste management and treatment teams were already grappling with serious challenges, as 1,700 to 2,000 tons of waste were generated daily. This waste was transported to two main landfills that were no longer able to handle this amount. This forced them to transfer the waste to unregulated landfills scattered across various areas, increasing the risks of negative health and environmental impacts. 2
UNRWA has warned that waste is piling up in Gaza, putting people’s health and lives at risk. Hundreds of thousands are forced to live amid piles of waste, which has caused bad odor emissions and the spread of insects and rats, leading to the breakout of diseases and directly endangering people’s public health.3 Meanwhile, the municipal crews are still facing enormous challenges in transferring the waste piling up in these areas to the designated disposal sites in eastern Gaza Strip as Israel continues to deny specialized teams from transferring the waste to the main landfill in Johr al-Deek, Gaza City due to its location in the Israeli-controlled areas.
Eng. Mohammed Mesleh, al-Maghazi Mayor and Director of the Solid and Hazardous Waste Department at the Environment Quality Authority, said in an interview with PCHR’s researcher:
“Since the beginning of the war, we have transferred waste from al-Maghazi refugee camp and nearby areas to an open and unprepared landfill spanning over 4 dunums at the camp’s entrance on Salah al-Deen Street. The capacity of the landfill is about to be full due to the tons of waste piling up to 4 meters high as Israel continues to prevent us from transferring the waste to the main landfills. As a result, this landfill will no longer be able to take additional piles of waste, and it will ultimately lead to a serious environmental and health hazard.”4
The collapse of the medical waste management system alongside mixture of hazardous medical waste with daily-generated waste threatens the already collapsed health situation and raises risks of infectious disease breakout such as viral Hepatitis. Hazardous waste is piling up in hospitals, clinics and primary healthcare centers as they contain chemical substances and contaminants in addition to sharp tools that should be sorted, treated and then transferred to main landfills in order to be finally safely buried. However, this process is not possible anymore given the destruction of medical waste collection trucks and the waste treatment plants alongside lack of essential sterilization supplies and detergents in healthcare facilities. The specialized teams are facing difficulties in dealing with this type of waste as the actual size of medical waste collected and treated in the first months of the war has reached around 1 to 1.5 tons monthly while the actual size of accumulated medical waste exceeds 25 tons monthly. This means most of the medical waste is mixed with the daily waste and has not been sorted. Meanwhile, the specialized teams in cooperation with international medical organizations and health authorities managed to collect and securely treat around 10 tons of medical waste monthly but this number is still far away from the actual quantity that requires treatment.5
In light of this concerning crisis, PCHR sends an urgent appeal to the international community and humanitarian organizations to act immediately to save the lives of 2 million Palestinians and protect them from the repercussions of the health and environmental disaster they are facing due to the accumulation of thousands of hundreds of tons of waste that poses real danger to their lives. PCHR calls for allowing the specialized teams’ access to the main landfills in the Gaza Strip in order to transfer the waste piling up in residential areas in addition to establishing new secure waste disposal sites. PCHR also urges the international community to take an urgent action to exert pressure on Israel to fulfill its obligations as an occupying power, including first and foremost an immediate cease of its military aggression on the Gaza Strip, end of the strangulating siege, reopening of all border crossings and allowing the sustained and immediate flow of humanitarian aid and supplies essential for the survival of the population. This includes the unrestricted entry of waste management equipment and supplies, such as fuel for operating waste machinery, collection containers, transport trucks, maintenance tools, spare parts, and essential protective and sterilization gear.
