From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   New Quarrel in Israel-Occupied West Bank: Where to Dump the Trash   
   By Omar Abdel-Baqui, April 23, 2023, WSJ   
   ATARA, West Bank—Thaer Atary and his family live just steps away from an   
   overflowing makeshift dumpsite that sends noxious fumes drifting into their   
   home in this mountaintop Palestinian village.   
      
   â€œA dump should never be this close to residents,â€� said Mr. Atary, worrying   
   for the health of his children as the stench of rotting trash wafts through   
   the air.   
      
   The Israel-occupied West Bank has more than 70 unofficial dumpsites, many of   
   them in densely-populated Palestinian cities and villages under the control of   
   the semiautonomous Palestinian Authority. About 10% of residential trash in   
   areas under authority    
   management is dumped in such sites or simply burned, according to researchers   
   overseen by the United Nations.   
      
   The reasons are many. Israel restricts construction on land it controls, while   
   suitably unpopulated areas under authority jurisdiction are scarce. Disputes   
   between Palestinians and Israeli settlers over rights to official landfills   
   have held back efforts    
   to build or expand them.   
      
   The mounting piles of garbage are a stark reminder of how fights over   
   land—both large and small—continue to play out in the region as both   
   Palestinians and Israelis press their claims to the territory.   
      
   They also show how the stalled peace process has left Palestinians with little   
   scope to deal with the problem.   
      
   Though Israel wrested control of the West Bank after the 1967 war with Jordan,   
   it didn’t formally annex the region, which would mean taking responsibility   
   for the welfare of Palestinians who live there.   
      
   Instead, the Palestinian Authority administers about 40% of the area, but   
   can’t freely use space beyond the borders set in the 1995 Oslo Accords peace   
   agreement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, despite the population   
   growing by over 1 million    
   to three million people in the intervening years.   
      
   The authority is now struggling to safely dispose of growing amounts of trash,   
   limited in part by a $770 million budget deficit for 2022, according to World   
   Bank estimates, and adding to a growing list of troubles. Public schools have   
   closed since    
   February due to teacher strikes affecting hundreds of thousands students;   
   public employees haven’t received full salaries in over a year; and new   
   armed groups have flourished, further eroding the authority’s legitimacy.   
   Polls regularly show most    
   Palestinians are increasingly frustrated with the authority, which they   
   believe is corrupt and ineffective.   
      
   The Palestinian Authority didn’t respond to requests for comment about its   
   public approval ratings and its budget issues.   
      
   Many municipalities under Palestinian control rely on unofficial dumpsites   
   because, officials say, they feel there is no other choice. Environmental   
   groups say these unofficial dumpsites don’t follow the same safety   
   precautions as official landfills.    
   Roadways in the Palestinian territory are full of litter and residents often   
   burn trash near their homes, creating toxic fumes. With one of just three main   
   sanitary landfills in the West Bank operated by Palestinians nearing capacity,   
   officials and    
   environmental groups are warning that the area is on the cusp of an impending   
   environmental crisis.   
      
   â€œThe status quo is not sustainable,â€� said Nidal Atallah, a spokesman at   
   the Heinrich Boll Foundation, a German nongovernmental organization. “Waste   
   management is often overlooked because of the political situation, but it’s   
   part of the political    
   situation. It’s something that affects lives, land, air, water and the   
   region’s future.â€�   
      
   For some Palestinians, trying to dispose of trash safely can be a dangerous   
   undertaking.   
      
   Bahjat Jabarin, the mayor of Ad-Dhahiriya, a West Bank Palestinian town that   
   straddles territory controlled by the authority and Israel, late last year   
   directed the municipality he governs to build an unpermitted waste transfer   
   site to cope with the townâ   
   €™s growing trash problem. Mr. Jarabin said the site had to cross over into   
   territory controlled by Israel for it to be safely away from residents.   
      
   In January, Israeli soldiers detained Mr. Jabarin for several hours—at   
   gunpoint, he said—when he refused to hand over keys to the site’s   
   machinery.   
      
   A month after his detention, mounds of rotting trash and animal carcasses   
   could be seen at the site. He said the Israeli military barred the   
   municipality from conducting work at the station, including removing the waste   
   that was already there. The    
   military also seized two municipal-owned bulldozers and a garbage truck that   
   were returned weeks later, after the city paid a fine of a few thousand   
   dollars for building the illegal site, Mr. Jabarin said.   
      
   The Israeli military declined to comment on the incident. The Coordinator of   
   Government Activities in the Territories—the agency in the Israeli Defense   
   Ministry responsible for overseeing parts of the West Bank and liaising with   
   the authority—said    
   requests for permits often don’t adhere to Israel’s planning laws, which   
   are stricter than global standards. The agency, known as Cogat, seldom grants   
   Palestinian construction permit requests, according to the U.N.   
      
   â€œCogat representatives are helping to advance the planning processes for   
   infrastructure projects that will deal with issues of environmental quality,   
   including waste,â€� Cogat said.   
      
   In other cases, Palestinians have run into conflict with Israeli settlers. A   
   $15 million landfill project initially funded by the German government in 2004   
   has been stalled due to legal and administrative delays, including a court   
   case brought by nearby    
   Israeli settlers who are demanding the site also serve Jewish residents and   
   not be exclusively for Palestinians.   
      
   â€œWe refuse this demand on a matter of principle,â€� said Majdi Al Saleh, the   
   Palestinian Authority’s minister of local government, adding that the   
   authority doesn’t recognize Israeli settlements as legitimate.   
      
   Cogat said that the Israeli Supreme Court rejected objections to the planning   
   process. The agency said it is awaiting an application for construction and   
   that the site is intended for Palestinian use only.   
      
      
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