Thursday, November 18, 2010

Israel’s Toxic Chemical Factories Giving Cancer to West Bank Residents

Palestine Monitor
17 November 2010
The settlements’ chemical factories poison Palestinian lands with toxic waste and expose residents to carcinogenic fumes. The factory workers are more vulnerable to cancer due to their employers’ failure to provide protective clothing. Special report from Sophie Crowe.
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“The industrial zones are built on hilltops, their wastewater flowing down to Palestinian villages in the valleys. Factories also burn their waste and leave it in Palestinian agricultural land”, Kifaya states. Barkan, the largest industrial settlement in the West Bank, housing one hundred chemical factories, and Ariel are devastating Salfit, in the northern West Bank. “Salfit’s once beautiful Qana Valley has been polluted by these factories”, Kifaya says. Brukeen, one of Salfit’s surrounding villages, suffers from the polluting effects of the Ariel industrial settlement, namely in the high levels of cancer reported there.

Fathi Nasser, spokesman of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, told us “20km to the West of Nablus a settlement has started a dump very close to the water source for the wider Nablus area, which it will likely pollute”. Nablus authorities have protested but to no avail, environmental laws in the Palestinian Territories being ineffective here. A court declared an oil-producing factory near Nablus hazardous for the environment and ordered it to close. The owner was able to ignore this order, being inside Area C.

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2 comments:

  1. TGIA, last July you had a piece on pollution with several pictures. Remember how the Israel shuts down the polluting plants for one month during the year when the wind is blowing towards Israel. As to the rest of the year, it doesn't give a damn what the polluters do to the Palestinians.

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  2. Let's not forget VEOLIA -
    "Veolia's shameful crimes in Palestine also include the Tovlan landfill site it operates in the occupied Jordan Valley where it helps Israel dump its toxic waste on to Palestinian land next to the Palestinian village of Abu Ajaj."
    http://www.inminds.co.uk/article.php?id=10479

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