Mountains of garbage are creating more hazards in Gaza

Following months of bitter conflict in Gaza, thousands of tons of garbage remain piled in the streets, creating an even greater ecological and health dilemma for those remaining in the territory. Even before the war broke out following Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Gazans were faced with a lackluster garbage disposal system.

Despite its hurdles, this system was able to keep up, even as Gazans were generating an estimated 1,700 tons of daily waste before the war. But this is no longer the case, and mountains of garbage now threaten the stability of the entire region.

How much garbage is in Gaza?

The three main landfills that collected garbage in pre-war Gaza have been closed due to the conflict, which "forced local authorities to find temporary dumpsites," said Reuters. About 225 of these sites were operating in Gaza as of May 2024, according to the outlet.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

However, more waste is being generated now than during pre-war times; there is an estimated 2,000 tons of garbage being created daily. In the first eight months of the war, over 364,000 tons of solid waste are "estimated to have built up in the Palestinian territory," said the BBC. And the ongoing conflict means that Gazans are struggling to remove this garbage, with "only 600 to 700 tons of waste collected daily," said Reuters.

Why is this such a big problem?

Gazans often become embedded within these temporary dumpsites. Many "Palestinians running out of areas to shelter say they've had little choice but to pitch tents near trash piles," said The Associated Press. One informal landfall was built after Oct. 7 in Khan Younis, and a "tent city has sprung up around the landfill, with Palestinians living between piles of garbage."

Conditions are particularly bad for those who fled the shelled city of Rafah; many "have been forced to live in open areas" that had already been turned into temporary refuse sites, said the BBC. The "smell is very disturbing. I keep my tent door open so that I can get some air, but there is no air," displaced Gazan Asmahan al-Masri said to the BBC.

Diseases are running rampant, and "doctors fear cholera may be on the horizon," said the AP. The "crowded conditions, the lack of water, the heat, the poor sanitation — these are the preconditions of cholera," Joanne Perry, a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, said to the AP. Most of her patients "have illnesses or infections caused by poor sanitation." Major outbreaks of polio have also been seen throughout Gaza, thought to be linked to the garbage.

This "waste here has brought diseases. Our children are suffering from various ailments that we have never seen before," Abou Mohammed, a Palestinian who lives near a major landfill, said to Reuters. And it may not just be Gaza that suffers: other areas in the surrounding Middle East, including Israel, could be at risk from these garbage piles.

The "health and sanitary situation in Gaza is dire, with dramatic and widespread ramifications," Nadav Davidovitch, a health systems management professor at Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, said to The Times of Israel. It is "evident that the health risks will not simply stop at the Gaza border, but pose a threat to IDF soldiers serving in the Strip and to some residents of Israel," the outlet added.