Illegal Dumping Sickens Jabal Mukabbir Community While Jerusalem Authorities Refuse to Act

One day in 2019, large trucks dumped dirt and rubble on an empty piece of land in the Palestinian town of Jabal Mukabbir in southern East Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Municipality claimed to be setting a foundation to build new public facilities in the village. Two weeks later, the same trucks dumped residential trash and construction waste, apparently hauled there from (Jewish) West Jerusalem. Police looked on while trucks continued to dump the waste. Complaints to city officials piled up.1

After enduring four years of this dumping spree, Motasem Aweisat, a resident whose house is now surrounded by waste, submitted an expert legal opinion on the dangers of the landfill to the municipality. It was written by an environmental expert who previously held leadership positions in the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection. The legal opinion warned of the possibility of a fire developing on site and of long-term environmental damage.2 It was dismissed by the municipality.3

And indeed, in May 2024, the landfill caught on fire and has been smoldering uncontrolled ever since. Today, the illegal landfill is a giant mountain of waste emitting toxic smoke. Nearby are a playground, a kindergarten, and several family homes.

A lawsuit was filed against the municipality, and the trucks stopped dumping waste, but the fire still burns.

“As soon as we go home, we should burn these clothes,” Zaki Aweisat, a concerned Palestinian neighbor, overheard firefighters working on the site say in Hebrew.4 It has been reported that the landfill contains hazardous hospital waste that is flammable and causes fires deep within the mountains of waste, making it difficult to put out. Fires restart 15 minutes after the fire truck leaves the site.5 Locals say the landfill burns in all colors of the rainbow, raising fears of toxic chemical fires.

Jabal Mukabbir is home to 24,640 Palestinians and is surrounded by the Israeli settlements of Armon HaNetziv and Nof Zion, which were established on the village lands, encroaching on their neighborhoods (see Settlements).6 Moreover, there is a police station at the village entrance that subjects the residents to over-policing, arbitrary road closures, confrontations, and demolitions for building without a permit.7

Still, the police ignore the residents’ many complaints about illegal dumping.

Jabal Mukabbir residents report persistent headaches, and both children and adults are developing chronic respiratory issues such as asthma due to ongoing exposure to the smoke and toxins. Oroub Shkerat, a Jabal Mukabbir native who works in public health advocacy in East Jerusalem, spoke with the East Jerusalem director of Clalit—an Israeli public health provider—who said that their internal data points to a sharp increase in asthma and other respiratory diseases in the village.8

Those living nearby cannot sit outside in their yards, open their windows, or even turn on air conditioning for fear of breathing the foul air. Families have resorted to covering the cracks in their doors and windows with towels to avoid any leakage. Even households far from the site report smelling the odors. Some have moved out of their homes in Jabal Mukabbir and are renting elsewhere in Jerusalem to escape the suffocating fumes, albeit without compensation from authorities.9

This story began with an under-the-table deal between a municipality-hired construction contractor and a few Jabal Mukabbir residents in 2019. Instead of paying large sums to dispose of construction waste in authorized areas, the contractor made an agreement, at a much lower price, to use the locals’ empty piece of land.10

When this seemingly limited deal turned into hundreds of trucks’ worth of waste daily, the neighbors approached the municipality to end the illegal activity. The municipality claims it was unaware of and therefore had no responsibility for the deal. It issued fines to the contractor and launched an investigation. This, however, did not seem to stop other illegal dumpers.

Despite city officials’ claims, the area where the landfill sits is within the municipality’s jurisdiction. Thus, the city is required by law to protect the residents from harm and to penalize anyone who causes public or environmental harm.11 According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), if the municipality fails to perform its duties, the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection has the authority to act—indeed, is required to act without delay to eliminate the health and environmental hazard.

The risks posed by the burning landfill extend to long-term pollution of the underground water, soil, and air—even beyond Jabal Mukabbir. ACRI says that cleaning up this environmental hazard may take significant time and resources, and urges the authorities to act immediately.12 As outlined in a December 2023 letter to Motasem Aweisat by the Jerusalem Municipality, the Jerusalem mayor, and the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, “the main enforcement agency for illegal waste sites is the local authority and only in exceptional circumstances, such as an immediate health or environmental danger, will the ministry consider acting in place of the municipality in case it fails to act.”13

Although evidence exists of health complications, constant smoke emission, and unbearable chemical odors, alongside countless complaints made to the municipality, the illegal landfill persists six years later. Motasem Aweisat reported that “the municipality is preventing the Ministry of Environmental Protection from intervening,” and ignores its proposal to empty the site which, if executed, “would cost the municipality hundreds of millions of shekels.”

As an alternative to the cost of remediation, in 2025 the municipality has instead asked contractors to bury the landfill with construction waste, supposedly extinguishing the fire. Residents see this as a sweetheart deal to continue to save both the city and contractors money while Palestinians living there continue to suffer. “Ultimately, it is better for the contractors to not put out the fire,” said Aweisat. The residents say they have to wear masks in order to move around the neighborhood.

Growing impatient, the residents often block the dump trucks, using their bodies to prevent the contractors from entering. They are demanding to see a rehabilitation plan with clear objectives from officials before allowing additional dumping operations. Local activist groups from East and West Jerusalem are putting pressure on the authorities through demonstrations, site tours for other activists, and media coverage. However, the drawn-out issue has exhausted the residents of Jabal Mukabbir. Shkerat says such despair is uncharacteristic of the tight knit community, which usually has the solidarity to sustain itself and resolve its issues independently from the authorities.

This time around, the issue is beyond the community’s control, and the municipality is failing them.