On June 16th this year, the BBC’s headline news on Gaza read, “Israel strikes in Gaza after fire balloons launched”¹ Many, including the BBC, considered the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in June to be an overreaction to a relatively harmless protest practice. In fact, the reaction was more about the damage mainly caused to crops and nature reserves by the launching of fire balloons. It is even more remarkable that in these times of ‘climate crisis’ and concern for ‘Planet Earth’ that the British media never seem to have raised concerns about the long-running saga of Palestinian damage to the environment.

Deliberate wildlife and habitat destruction

The recent anti-environmental policy of using airborne arson devices began in April 2018 in connection with the so-called ‘Great March of Return’. What started primarily as ‘Molotov Cocktails’ suspended from simple kites developed into larger devices, even improvised explosives, carried by clusters of helium balloons for greater penetration into Israel. Naturally, the landing sites were totally indiscriminate.

According to the 'Times of Israel', “From April to June 2018, Israeli firefighters extinguished 1,954 fires started by arson attacks in the fields, forests and grasslands around the Gaza Strip. They fought 383 blazes over the same period in 2019. In addition, throughout 2018, approximately 34,000 dunams (8,400 acres) of Israeli land were burned in arson attacks, according to statistics from the Fire and Rescue Services, Jewish National Fund and Nature and Parks Authority.”²

Two examples of particular cruelty occurred in July and August. Firstly, a common kestrel, which is a type of falcon, was found dead hanging from a tree west of the Besor stream, not far from the Strip’s border. The kestrel was wearing a harness that was linked to a steel wire at the other end of which was an incendiary device. Secondly, a dead falcon was found hanging off an automatic irrigation line, with a wire tied to his leg affixed with an incendiary device, which had to be neutralised by a police sapper.³

Moreover, in 2019, up to the end of June a further 1,400 dunams (345 acres) were damaged by Gazan incendiary devices. On June 28th of that year, Ilse Strauss, of ‘Bridges for Peace’ reported, “The already fire-ravaged southern Israel experienced a particularly devastating day yesterday when an enormous wave of incendiary balloon attacks launched from the Gaza Strip sparked at least 30 blazes in areas around the border. The one-day blitz marks the highest number of fires ignited by Gaza-borne devices in a 24-hour period since the almost daily arson terror attacks began last spring. … A series of devastating blazes at the end of May burned up an entire Israeli community and left 50 families destitute as the fires ravaged their homes, leaving nothing but ashes. These Israelis now live in the heart-breaking reality of rebuilding what was destroyed.”⁴

Destruction of land and soil

Fires resumed again in August 2020, with over 2000 acres destroyed in one week. The Israeli news, Yedioth Ahranoth, reported that over 20 fires broke out in one day “in Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip, due to incendiary balloons sent into Israel from the Hamas-controlled enclave for the seventh day in a row. … In the last 72 hours, there have been 45 fires in the KKL-JNF forests in the south, scorching about 850 dunams of land. In Kibbutz Or HaNer near Sderot, about 2,000 dunams (over 490 acres) caught fire. And in Netiv HaAsara, approximately 350 dunams (over 90 acres) were burned.”⁵ Further arson continued for the rest of that month.

Palestinian arson attacks began yet again in May this year: “seven separate fires were ignited in Israel’s southern Eshkol Regional Council that lies adjacent to the Islamist-Hamas controlled Palestinian enclave yesterday. Teams from the National Fire and Rescue Authority and [other] workers … succeeded in extinguishing flames that scorched the Kissufim and Be’eri Forests. This, following the launching of two balloons attached to flammable materials that set fire to an agricultural area of Kibbutz Kfar Aza.”⁶ Such actions continued well into July.

It is even more remarkable that in these times of ‘climate crisis’ and concern for ‘Planet Earth’ that the British media never seem to have raised concerns about the long-running saga of Palestinian damage to the environment.

Experimental research has shown that beyond the immediate surface damage to Mediterranean forest, depending on fire intensity, severe depletion of soil carbon occurs, such that even after seven years only between 28% and 45% of the original remains.⁷ Other detrimental effects include soil compaction that hinders water penetration and reduces soil moisture,⁸ reduction in soil-microbial biomass and in both quantity and composition of soil-dwelling invertebrate communities.⁹ The effects on the associated communities of organisms, from beetles to birds and mammals, are also considerable.

Dangerous deliberate air pollution

Air pollution also results not only from the field and forest fires, but also from the practice of tyre-burning. Hitherto this has been mainly associated with smokescreen generation at the Gaza-Israel border and in confrontations with Israeli security forces. In one such event in 2018 Major-General Yoav Mordechai, co-ordinator of government activities in the Territories, warned that the smoke produced is carcinogenic and harmful to respiratory and immune systems (whether Israeli or Palestinian!). He also wrote to the World Health Organisation to intervene on this account, and on the risk of ecological damage resulting from poisoning plants and animals.^{10Burning tyres in Gaza, photo via Twitter, Ofir Gendelman}

The practice has also been utilised at smaller scales in the West Bank and Jerusalem from time to time. However, recent confrontations between the Palestinians of Beita, near Nablus, and a group of illegal Israeli settlers have escalated into thousands of tyres being used. According to Honest Reporting, over 70,000 tyres have been burned between May and July this year in an attempt to drive away the illegal Israeli settlers of Eviatar.

Quoting the US Environmental Protection Service, HR points out that “burning tyres break down into hazardous materials including gases and heavy metals. They can burn for months, constantly generating unhealthy smoke. Furthermore, on average, burning just one passenger car tyre produces over two gallons (7.6 litres) of toxic oil runoff, inevitably contaminating soil and groundwater.” HR also states that its “research indicates that Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were heavily involved, and the Western-backed PA recently provided Beita’s residents with almost a million US dollars to ‘strengthen their steadfastness’.”11

Such sheer irresponsibility beggars belief. As early as 1999 the Palestinian National Authority declared that it “seeks to achieve sustainable development in Palestine through conserving and enhancing environmental quality and by encouraging and promoting economic and social development that conserves and enhances environmental quality”.¹² Though my experience is limited, not one Palestinian environmental document I have read so far acknowledges the above kinds of indigenous damage. Although there is no doubt that Israel bears some responsibility, the most common Palestinian trope is that Israel is solely to blame for environmental degradation, such as the 2020 article, “Israeli occupation of Palestine is devastating the natural environment”.¹³ When will the West wake up to the realities of the situation?

Notes

1. Israel strikes in Gaza after fire balloons launched,  BBC News
2. Footage appears to show Hezbollah adopting Gaza arson tactics against Israel | The Times of Israel 19 Aug 2019
3. Falcon Tied to Incendiary Device Found Dead Near Israel–Gaza Border, Bridges for Peace 03 Aug 2018
4. Terror Arson Attacks from Gaza Spark Record Number of Blazes in Southern Israel, Bridges for PeaceBridges for Peace 28 Jun 2019
5. Quoted in Palestinians in Gaza Step Up Eco-Terrorism Against Israel (legalinsurrection.com), 13 Aug 2020
6. Gaza resumes fire balloon terrorism, TV7 Israel News, 07 May 2021
7. Chapter 6 The long-term effects on soil properties from a forest fire of varying intensity in a Mediterranean environment - ScienceDirect 2005
8. When ashes stain forest rivers: post-fire effects on soil and water ecosystems, MedForest, 30 Aug 2019
9. Effects of fire on properties of forest soils: a review, SpringerLink, 02 Feb 2005
10. Gazans to burn thousands of tires at border, The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com) 04 Apr 2018
11. Is the Palestinian Authority Secretly Financing Environmental Terrorism in West Bank? Honest Reporting, 21 Jul 2021
12. http://www.environment.pna.ps/ar/files/Environment_Impact_Assessment_Policy_en.pdf
13. An Environmental Nakba: The Palestinian Environment Under Israeli Colonization • SftP Magazine (scienceforthepeople.org)