Katz, Smotrich call West Bank waste fires national security issue, unveil emergency plan

Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declare that illegal waste fires in the West Bank constitute a threat to national security, and announce a national emergency plan after an urgent meeting with local authority heads.

According to a statement by the Defense Ministry, the emergency plan will be led jointly by the Defense and Finance ministries, alongside local authorities and security and enforcement agencies, and will include aggressive enforcement to counter the fires, administrative seizures of Palestinian waste trucks, large-scale waste removal and the establishment of a new waste disposal site in the central West Bank.

The move follows Health Ministry warnings this week urging residents of eastern Shoham, in central Israel, to stay indoors and turn off air conditioners overnight due to severe air pollution caused by illegal waste burning in the West Bank.

Authorities said elevated levels of benzene and other pollutants – exceeding limits set by the Clean Air Law – were detected by a mobile air-quality monitor, while the Civil Administration reported sealing four garbage-burning sites spanning some 45 dunams (11 acres).

“We will not allow residents of communities near the seam line to breathe smoke that poisons and harms health,” Katz says, referring to a swath of West Bank land on the Israeli side of the security barrier.

“We declared this a national phenomenon at the highest level that must be addressed as a national problem,” he continues. “We are going to address this with the utmost seriousness, with full force, to solve the problem once and for all.”

Calling the waste fires “environmental terrorism,” Smotrich says they demonstrate that “the Green Line is virtual, and when Judea and Samaria are the backyard of the State of Israel, the entire people of Israel are harmed.”

“We will eradicate this phenomenon through enforcement, waste removal, harsh and painful fines and of course by creating alternatives for waste disposal, while imposing the cost on the Palestinian Authority,” he adds.

Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Ministry requested some $41 million to combat the fires, but Smotrich left it out of the state budget approved by the cabinet.