War and Garbage in Gaza: The public health and environmental crisis from widespread solid waste pollution – occupied Palestinian territory

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War-torn Gaza grapples with grave health threats from mounting waste crisis

Throughout the Gaza Strip, hundreds of thousands of tons of solid waste are piling up in streets, between tents in displaced civilians’ camps, and next to the rubble in back alleys. The collapse of solid waste management since October 7, 2023, is worsening the public health crisis.

Palestinians are already suffering from malnourishment, a fractured health system, and daily exposure to disease and pollution. PAX is launching a new report ‘War and Garbage in Gaza’ that uses satellite imagery and open-source investigative (OSINT) methods to visualize how Gaza is drowning in conflict waste after months of fighting. The findings include over 225 waste locations across Gaza, from massive hundreds meters long garbage heaps to small dump sites that have turned into breeding grounds of diseases and become environmental hotspots. This festering garbage crisis comes on top of the many other conflict-linked environmental issues Gaza is facing, as outlined in PAX earlier scoping report ‘Uninhabitable’ from December 2023.

‘The suffering of the people in Gaza is compounded by the deteriorated environmental conditions they face on a daily basis,’says Wim Zwijnenburg, project leader for humanitarian disarmament and one of the authors of this report, ‘Surrounded by rotting garbage, burning plastics, and living in fear of bombing, the situation is getting more dire by the day. It is urgent that the international community provides support to humanitarian agencies in addressing these problems.’

War-linked garbage crisis on an enormous scale

This research required combing through thousands of photos and videos from traditional and social media sources, and many gigabytes of satellite imagery provided by Planet. The combination of perspectives helped document the enormous scale of the war-linked garbage crisis and project its potential impact on health and environment. Waste is found in dangerous proximity to or even within crowded displaced people camps aggravating risks posed to their already debilitated health. In other locations garbage heaps are on the seashore, slowly polluting the marine environment or affecting agricultural land and water sources. The waste management system in Gaza, already limited before the war, has now completely collapsed as collection vehicles have been destroyed and access to official landfills is refused by the Israeli military.

‘Amid Gaza’s unraveling humanitarian crisis, waste management might not be the first issue that comes to mind. It should be,’ states Marlina Zigka of Princeton University and co-author of the report, ‘Combining on-the-ground footage with satellite imagery, we aimed to demonstrate the utility of open-source documentation and earth observation to reveal the apocalyptic scale of this under-reported yet existential threat.’

Serious health implications

The lessons that PAX has gathered from working on previous conflicts and broader studies on solid waste dumps point to the serious health implications of unmitigated garbage dumping. Waste attracts rodents and insects resulting in the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera or skin diseases, while waste burning, a disposal method that locals use to manage the current emergency, worsens air pollution which in turn can result in further respiratory problems. People, many of whom are children, scavenging waste for food and sustenance, face additional risks from hazardous materials, which include medical waste and industrial chemicals. There are also growing indications that conflict pollution is risked with the spread of antimicrobial resistance, a development that can deepen the medical health crisis. Large waste dumps are also a threat to the soil and groundwater, as leachate, a toxic mix that spills from the waste, seeps into the land and affects groundwater, while in the long-term, increased methane release from landfills contributes to an increase of greenhouse gas emissions. Ad-hoc clean-up initiatives that aim to move the waste to less risky locations are already set up by humanitarian agencies and local committees of volunteers. Still, solid waste remains a long-term environmental and health problem that will follow Gaza for a long time.

The UN has warned of a ‘silent threat.’ from the waste that is impacting life-saving humanitarian response. Effective use of earth observation and OSINT is key to bring these hidden risks to the foreground to inform humanitarian response and ensure inclusion of these issues in the post-conflict phase.