Abstract
Over the past decade, Israel achieved substantial reductions in emissions from electricity generation, transport, and regulated industry through coal-to-gas transition, solar expansion, and stringent emission standards. Despite these gains, ambient air pollution remains the country’s leading environmental health burden, causing an estimated 4,641–6,166 premature deaths annually with economic losses exceeding seven billion USD. Official data from Israel’s 2024 Pollutant Release and Transfer Register reveal a paradox: uncontrolled open waste burning (mixed municipal solid waste, e-waste and agricultural residues)–predominantly across the West Bank and around the Green-Line (1949 armistice boundary)–now accounts for 75% of carcinogenic emissions and 27% of PM2.5 in the national inventory. These transboundary plumes expose Palestinian and Israeli urban and rural communities to acute and chronic health risks, including premature mortality, cardiorespiratory and metabolic disease, and might elevate cancer risk. This perspective argues that reliance on enforcement-only and short-term mitigation measures is structurally insufficient. Instead, a systemic, infrastructure-first approach–grounded in waste separation, material recovery, and waste-to-energy (WtE) for residual fractions–might offer a more effective and technically credible pathway to eliminate the phenomenon at its source. A coordinated, cross-border institutional framework, supported by bilateral monitoring, shared treatment capacity, and international finance can advance air quality, environmental justice, and regional stability with climate co-benefits.
1 Introduction
Israel’s air-quality trajectory over the past decade illustrates a central tension: success in controlling regulated point sources coexists with persistent—and even worsening—health burdens when large, informal emission sources remain structurally unaddressed.
Since 2012, national emission inventories from Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MoEP) documented substantial reductions in emissions of Nitrogen oxides (NOx), Sulfur dioxide (SO2), and particulate matter with diameter less than 10 μm (PM10) (74%, 87%, and 73%, respectively), from registered industrial facilities (). The coal-to-gas transition, expanded solar capacity, and implementation of Best Available Techniques (BAT) in industry, collectively drove these improvements (; ).
Yet ambient air pollution remains Israel’s leading environmental mortality risk factor, with MoEP and the Ministry of Health jointly attributing approximately 4,641–6,166 premature deaths annually to population exposure to fine particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5), NO2, and ground-level ozone (O3), with individual-pollutant contributions (non-additive) of 3,931–5,375, 346–628, and 348–575 respectively, and with economic losses over seven billion USD annually (; ). This aligns with global burden-of-disease assessments identifying PM2.5 as the dominant environmental health risk in the region (; ).
The mechanisms underlying this burden span both acute and chronic pathways. Ecological evidence from Israel links chronic exposure to PM2.5, PM10, NOx, and SO2 with elevated respiratory morbidity and heightened susceptibility to respiratory pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2 (; ), reinforcing the well-established cardiovascular and respiratory toll of particulate and gaseous pollutants. Furthermore, chronic exposure to ground-level ozone is positively associated with the incidence of metabolic disease, including type 2 diabetes, independent of socioeconomic status (). These cardiometabolic outcomes together with the carcinogenic hazard of the toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) discussed below, elevates the combined acute, chronic, and carcinogenic risks, particularly among sensitive populations such as the elderly, pregnant women, and young children (; ; ; ).
One major driver of this paradox is a rapidly growing, uncontrolled pollution source: large-scale, recurrent open burning of mixed municipal solid waste (MSW), e-waste (electronic waste), agricultural residues, and construction debris in informal and illegal disposal sites in the West Bank, some adjacent to Israeli localities along the Green-Line (1949 armistice demarcation boundary) (; ). Israel’s 2024 Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) report—the most comprehensive national pollutant-release inventory—indicates that open burning (combined urban and agricultural waste) accounts for 75% of carcinogenic air-pollutant emissions, 27% of PM2.5 and 19% of PM10 emissions in the national inventory (). These records signal a qualitative shift in Israel’s pollution profile: open waste fires have become a dominant driver of episodic peak concentrations of fine particles and carcinogenic VOCs, such as benzene, in exposed Israeli and Palestinian communities across the Green-Line.
This perspective paper advances three propositions: (1) transboundary waste-burning emissions represent a persistent public health emergency driven not only by political-will deficits alone but by fundamental structural deficits in solid-waste management infrastructure in the West Bank; (2) enforcement, while necessary short-term, cannot sustain mitigation without institutionalized waste-treatment alternatives; and (3) an infrastructure-first approach—prioritizing waste separation, material recovery, and waste-to-energy (WtE) conversion of residuals—offers a more durable pathway to reduce PM2.5, carcinogenic VOCs, and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), while advancing co-benefits of environmental justice and regional stability.
Notably, this perspective does not report new empirical data. Rather, it synthesizes three evidence streams—Israel’s 2024 Pollutant Release and Transfer Register, the 2024 State Comptroller audit of solid-waste governance in the West Bank, and the peer-reviewed literature on emissions, toxicology, and atmospheric transport of open waste burning—to derive an infrastructure-first policy framework and identify priorities for future research and monitoring.
2 The changing source structure of air pollution in Israel
Israel’s PRTR 2024 report documents substantial reductions in emissions from regulated sectors: reported VOCs and PM10 emissions from permitted facilities declined by 11% and 73% respectively, between 2012 and 2023. These gains were driven principally by the coal-to-gas transition, industrial BAT requirements, expanded electric transport, and renewables reaching 14.7% of electricity generation by 2024. Over the same period, carcinogenic emissions from permitted-facility sectors declined by 77% ().
Yet this progress has been offset by a structural shift toward unregulated combustion sources. The 2024 inventory attributes 27% of PM2.5 and 19% of PM10 to open waste burning (illegal urban and agricultural combined), placing it alongside transport (28% and 30%, respectively) as a co-dominant source. Most critically, illegal urban and agricultural burning together account for 75% of national carcinogenic air-pollutant emissions (41% and 34%, respectively)—versus only 16% from transport and 4% from industry and electricity combined. Non-permitted sector emissions, including open waste burning, rose 16% in 2024 alone, even as regulated-sector carcinogenic emissions kept decreasing. These diverging trends indicate that the dominant determinant of carcinogenic and PM pollution burden in Israel is no longer industrial point-source pollution but open waste burning—a single, structurally preventable category outside the regulatory perimeter. Moreover, West Bank burning sites lie outside Israel’s monitoring jurisdiction and may be under-captured, implying the attributable fraction is an underestimate ().
3 The West Bank open waste-burning problem: scale, practices, and transboundary dynamics
3.1 Waste management infrastructure deficit
The fundamental driver of open waste burning in the West Bank is an acute and longstanding deficit in formal solid waste management infrastructure. Across large areas of the West Bank, municipal collection coverage is incomplete, engineered landfill capacity is insufficient or inaccessible, and formal facilities for e-waste, construction debris, and agricultural residues are lacking. In this context, open dumping and burning are not aberrant choices but de facto waste-management practices driven by the absence of alternatives and, for e-waste, by economic incentives from high-value metal recovery ().
The problem is compounded by jurisdictional fragmentation. Under the Oslo Accords (1993–1995), civilian responsibilities in the West Bank (including waste management) are distributed among Palestinian local authorities, the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli Civil Administration, and various sectoral ministries—creating overlapping mandates and governance gaps in which enforcement is functionally absent (; ). The 2024 State Comptroller audit reported that only 1% of Palestinian waste was recycled in 2020, and 180,000 tons of mixed waste were openly burned in 2022. The report also documented hundreds of recurring burn sites, confirmed cross-border plume transport, and estimated the annual economic damage from West Bank waste-burning pollution at 0.29–0.43 billion USD in 2023 ().
3.2 Emission profile and toxic compounds
Open burning of mixed MSW generates a characteristically toxic emission profile. Uncontrolled combustion of plastics, rubber, and e-waste at relatively low temperatures (typically 200°C–700°C), produces elevated concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), including the IARC Group 1 carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene, as well as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), VOCs including benzene, fine and ultrafine particulate matter with high heavy metals content (; ). Emission factors for PM2.5 and PAH are substantially higher than for controlled incineration with modern flue-gas treatment ().
Laboratory and field studies document that PM2.5 from biomass and waste burning exhibits greater cytotoxic and oxidative-stress potential than particles from fossil fuel combustion alone (). E-waste burning in particular generates PCDD/Fs and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) at concentrations that substantially exceed regulatory thresholds; systematic reviews confirm elevated carcinogenicity, neurodevelopmental toxicity, and endocrine disruption in exposed populations, with particular severity in children (; ).
documented specific pathways of environmental contamination and health risk from informal scrap and e-waste recycling in the Western Hebron district. These findings corroborate the broader body of evidence linking informal e-waste burning to elevated cancer risk, including the spatial association between e-waste burning sites and childhood lymphoma documented in the West Bank context ().
3.3 Transboundary atmospheric transport
The transboundary dimension is central to the policy relevance of this problem. Waste burning typically occurs during early-evening and night hours, when low boundary-layer heights, katabatic drainage flows from the Judean highlands, and prevailing easterly/northeasterly synoptic-scale winds drive plume transport across the Green-Line toward the Israeli coastal plain (). Consequently, benzene in downwind Israeli communities characteristically rises in late evening (20:00–21:00), peaks between 03:00 and 06:00, and remains elevated through early morning (07:00–08:00) (; ).
A well-documented episode from 2025 provides quantitative evidence of the magnitude of these exceedances. After persistent resident complaints from Shoham—a town of ∼24,000 located 3–4 km west of the Green-Line—the MoEP deployed a mobile air-quality monitoring unit in the Hadarim neighborhood on December 2nd, 2025 (Figure 1). Within 2 weeks of monitoring (through 14 December), four daily-average exceedances of the Clean Air Law benzene standard (3.9 μg/m3, 24-h mean) were recorded, with the Ministry of Health noting these were unusually high nationally, including versus Green-Line sites. The peak hourly concentration reached 20 µg/m3—over five times the daily-average standard. By end-December 2025, 14 daily-average exceedances had been registered, prompting the Ministry of Health “shelter-in-place” advisory on December 15th, urging residents to close windows and switch off external-air-intake air-conditioning at night (; ).
FIGURE 1
January 2026 follow-up monitoring at a second unit inside the Nitzanim school documented hourly benzene concentrations of 3.0–7.8 μg/m3, exceeding 3.9 μg/m3 exclusively between 21:00 and 05:00, consistent with the nocturnal transport pathway described above. School-hours concentrations (08:00–16:00) remained below 2.84 μg/m3. Notably, the Hadarim neighborhood portable station 5 still recorded over 10 μg/m3 around 22:00 in early January 2026, before targeted enforcement was fully implemented (Figure 2A) ().
FIGURE 2
Following targeted enforcement operations that dismantled four illegal burning sites covering 45 dunams (4.5 ha) in late December 2025, and MoEP allocation of 12.8 million USD for emergency mitigation measures, daily benzene exceedances fell from 14 in December 2025 to only 2 in January 2026, with further reductions observed in late January (Figure 2B) (; ). This rapid response demonstrates that targeted, well-resourced enforcement can yield measurable short-term improvement—but the fundamental infrastructure gap driving the phenomenon remained unaddressed, consistent with the argument presented in this perspective.
This episode situates the West Bank waste-burning problem within the broader framework of anthropogenic air pollution in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Long-term monitoring in Cyprus has documented a continuous increase in biomass and waste-burning contributions to regional PM levels over the past decade (), consistent with the trend observed in the Israeli national inventory.
4 Health and environmental justice implications
4.1 Mortality and morbidity burden
Robust epidemiological evidence, including meta-analyses, links long-term PM2.5 exposure to increased all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality, and lung cancer incidence (; ; ; ; ). The previously described Israel-specific air pollution burden (Section 1) reflects a country-specific exposure profile, combining chronic background concentrations and recurrent acute peaks from waste-burning episodes ().
Short-term exposure to waste-burning plumes is associated with acute exacerbations of asthma, cardiovascular events, and respiratory infections (; ). Using GEOS-Chem modelling, attributed ∼118,600 premature deaths yr−1 to open biomass and trash burning in Africa—an approach potentially transferable to the West Bank–Israeli corridor. The non-linear PM2.5 concentration-response function means peak-concentration burning events may contribute disproportionately to the integrated health burden relative to their annual mean contribution ().
Beyond fine particles, the carcinogenic organics fraction—benzene, benzo[a]pyrene, dioxins, and furans—from waste burning is of particular concern given its direct association with haematological cancers and other malignancies (; ). Benzene, classified as a Group 1 human carcinogen by IARC, is specifically associated with leukemia and lymphoma; chronic sub-threshold exposures are also linked to immune-system suppression (). The Shoham episode (Section 3.3) illustrates the resulting exposures, with 14 benzene exceedances in a single community within 1 month (; ; ). Because systematic VOC monitoring along the Green-Line is sparse, these values are a lower bound; unmonitored communities may experience comparable or higher concentrations—a hypothesis that the binational monitoring network proposed in Section 6.3 should directly test.
4.2 Environmental justice
The distribution of exposure is profoundly inequitable. Palestinian communities adjacent to burn sites experience the highest and most continuous exposure, often without adequate healthcare access, indoor air filtration capacity, or political recourse. Israeli communities along the Green-Line—including Arab localities within Israel that also engage in informal waste burning—face recurrent smoke incursions with associated respiratory and quality-of-life impacts, albeit with better access to healthcare and reporting mechanisms. This asymmetry situates the waste-burning problem as a paradigmatic environmental-justice issue in a conflict-affected context (; ).
Inequitable exposure is unlikely to be remedied by enforcement actions alone while the underlying infrastructure inequality that generates differential exposure remains unaddressed. West Bank waste burning meets the classic criteria for environmental injustice: a polluting activity that imposes costs predominantly on politically and economically marginalized communities, on both sides of the Green-Line ().
5 The inadequacy of enforcement-centric approaches
Enforcement actions—dismantling burn sites, seizing equipment, issuing fines—have been deployed recurrently by the Israeli Civil Administration, the IDF, and Palestinian Authority enforcement bodies. Available evidence indicates these interventions provide only temporary disruption: burning relocates rather than ceases, reflecting structural drivers (absence of formal waste-treatment alternatives and the economic incentives from e-waste metal recovery) that are not addressed by enforcement ().
This pattern is consistent with the theoretical framework of open-burning governance in developing-country contexts: while formal infrastructure is absent, enforcement costs are high, and informal burning yields immediate economic returns, rational actors continue burning even under enforcement pressure (; ). demonstrated that full elimination of open waste burning—with the associated benefits in climate forcing and air quality—requires systemic infrastructure transitions, not enforcement alone.
The economic calculus reinforces this analysis. The State Comptroller’s 2024 estimate of 0.29–0.43 billion USD in annual health and agricultural damages attributable to West Bank waste-burning air pollution provides a lower-bound economic justification for infrastructure investment that eliminates these externalities (). This recurring damage suggests substantial economic headroom for infrastructure investment; a formal cost–benefit analysis quantifying net present value under explicit capital-cost and discount-rate assumptions is a priority for future work.
6 The infrastructure-first policy framework
The framework presented in this section is prescriptive: it translates the empirical evidence reviewed in Sections 2–5 into policy recommendations.
6.1 Rationale and hierarchy
Consistent with the waste hierarchy codified in the EU Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC), I propose a strategy prioritizing: source prevention and reduction, reuse, materials recovery, biological treatment (composting and anaerobic digestion), and finally energy recovery (WtE) for non-divertible residual fractions. Open burning is, in effect, uncontrolled “waste-to-energy” at the lowest possible efficiency and with no emission controls. Replacing it with engineered alternatives addresses both the pollution and resource-efficiency dimensions simultaneously.
6.2 Core infrastructure package
6.2.1 Municipal solid waste systems
A network of transfer stations, material-recovery facilities (MRFs), and engineered sanitary landfills designed to EU standards, with robust leachate containment, landfill gas management, and environmental monitoring. This forms the foundational layer that must be in place before higher-order treatment technologies can function.
6.2.2 E-waste management
Formal collection points and processing facilities compliant with EU WEEE Directive principles, enabling safe metal recovery under controlled conditions. This is particularly urgent given the scale and toxicity of West Bank e-waste burning and the economic logic driving informal processing. International experience demonstrates that formalizing e-waste recycling can be made economically self-sustaining through metal-recovery revenues and extended producer -responsibility frameworks (; ).
6.2.3 Agricultural and organic waste
Composting and anaerobic digestion facilities for organic agricultural residues and food waste. These technologies not only eliminate open burning of field residues but generate compost and biogas with positive economic value, creating incentives for adoption. Their deployment has been shown to yield substantial co-benefits in greenhouse gas reduction (; ).
6.2.4 Waste-to-energy for residual fractions
Modern grate-combustion or fluidized-bed WtE facilities, meeting EU Industrial Emissions Directive standards, can accept residual combustibles that cannot be economically recycled or composted, diverting them from open burning and landfilling. showed the landfilling-to-WtE transition in Europe cut dioxin emissions by 27%–94% per mass unit of waste treated, primarily through landfill-fire elimination. Applied to the West Bank context, where open burning is the reference scenario rather than engineered landfilling, WtE emission-reduction potential is probably substantially larger, although this extrapolation has not yet been quantified for the West Bank waste stream.
Notably, WtE is appropriate for residual waste only, after prior separation and recovery of recyclables. Poorly designed systems that accept unsorted waste can create incentives against source separation, which regulatory design must prevent.
6.3 Governance and bilateral coordination
Infrastructure investment alone is necessary but not sufficient. An integrated governance framework must ensure facilities are accessible to communities now reliant on open burning, that emission standards are enforced, and that monitoring data are public and binational. A joint Israeli–Palestinian waste and air-quality management body—supported and co-managed by international partners such as the EU and Gulf states, should coordinate planning, siting, permitting, and compliance monitoring (; ).
A binational air-quality monitoring network that continuously tracks plume transport from identified burning hotspots to downwind communities would provide the real-time evidence base needed for both regulatory response and health advisories, as well as for iterative assessment of the effectiveness of infrastructure investments.
6.4 Financing
Financing must reflect shared responsibility. Israel, as the primary destination economy bearing substantial health and economic damages and a source of much of the e-waste, should contribute capital and technical assistance. The Palestinian Authority should lead local planning and operational governance. International climate and development finance mechanisms—EU neighborhood funding, Gulf development funds, and multilateral finance targeting short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs)—can provide additional capital. Black carbon from waste burning is a potent short-lived climate forcer, so eliminating open burning delivers immediate, quantifiable climate co-benefits that qualify for international climate finance (; ; ; ).
6.5 Limitations and priorities for future research and implementation
This perspective presents a conceptual framework, not an operational plan. Location analyses, cost estimates, financing structures, and negotiated allocations of institutional responsibility remain to be developed and are subject to substantial political and institutional uncertainty. The framework thus defines the direction and sequencing of intervention, while its implementation parameters remain to be established through four prioritized work streams.
First, pilot implementation: a transfer station coupled with a material-recovery facility, sited in Area A near the Palestinian cities where most waste is generated. Qalqilya or Tulkarem are strong candidates—Both are area A cities, fully controlled by the Palestinian Authority, situated on the Green-Line within the documented transport corridor, where existing Israeli monitoring stations would enable quasi-experimental evaluation of downwind benzene and PM2.5 outcomes. Second, governance experimentation: comparative feasibility assessment of joint municipal service councils, a donor-administered implementation vehicle, and Palestinian Authority-led operation with international oversight. Third, techno-economic assessment: a West Bank waste-characterization study for capacity sizing, followed by formal cost–benefit analysis benchmarked against the 0.29–0.43 billion USD annual damage estimate. Fourth, performance monitoring: active burn sites detected by satellite thermal anomalies, tonnage diverted to formal treatment, and exceedance-day frequency at Green-Line stations, providing a direct measure of the health-relevant outcome.
7 Conclusion
Israel’s air-quality record illustrates the limits of sectoral emission regulation when large, structurally uncontrolled sources remain outside the regulatory perimeter. The 2024 data show open waste burning now accounts for 75% of national carcinogenic air-pollutant emissions, 27% of PM2.5, and 19% of PM10— a share dominating the residual health burden after a decade of regulated-sector progress.
Three policy implications are drawn: First, the West Bank’s waste-infrastructure deficit must be recognized as a primary public-health challenge for Palestinians and Israelis alike, not merely a byproduct of long-lasting political conflict. Second, enforcement-dominated approaches that ignore infrastructure drivers cannot deliver durable emission reductions and should be subordinated to infrastructure investment. Third, an infrastructure package anchored in waste separation and material recovery, with WtE for residuals, and supported by a joint governance framework and international financing, offers a technically credible and economically feasible pathway to eliminating the dominant remaining regional source of carcinogenic and PM air pollution.
At stake are, by conservative estimates, hundreds of premature deaths annually, billions of USD in avoidable damages, and Palestinian and Israeli communities’ wellbeing, on both sides of the Green-Line. With the regulated sectors’ “low-hanging fruit” largely harvested, an infrastructure-first strategy is the next necessary step toward equitable reductions in the regional air-pollution burden—and it must begin now, not await a future comprehensive peace agreement. Implementing this strategy today could save lives and prevent substantial health-related human suffering.
Statements
Data availability statement
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
Author contributions
AL: Visualization, Conceptualization, Validation, Project administration, Writing – review and editing, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Investigation.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Generative AI statement
The author(s) declared that generative AI was used in the creation of this manuscript. Generative AI was used for English editing and grammar.
Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Abbreviations
WtE, Waste-to-energy; PM, particulate matter; PM10, particulate matter with diameter less than 10 μm; PM2.5, fine particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 μm; NOx, Nitrogen oxides; SO2, Sulfur dioxide; BAT, Best Available Techniques; MoEP, Ministry of Environmental Protection; VOCs, volatile organic compounds; MSW, municipal solid waste; e-waste, electronic waste; PAHs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; PCDD/Fs, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans; PRTR, Pollutant Release and Transfer Register; PBDEs, polybrominated diphenyl ethers; MRFs, material-recovery facilities; SLCPs, short-lived climate pollutants; GHGs, greenhouse gas emissions.
References
1
Barnett-ItzhakiZ.LeviA. (2022). Association between chronic exposure to ambient air pollutants, demography, vaccination level, and the spread of COVID-19 during the 2021 Delta variant morbidity wave. Atmosphere13, 1845. 10.3390/atmos13111845
2
Barnett-ItzhakiZ.MeirS.RozolioY.NoyA.Ben-DavidB. (2025). Evaluating the effectiveness of abatement technologies in reducing air pollution from power plants. Integr. Environ. Assess. Manag.21 (5), 1039–1046. 10.1093/inteam/vjaf036
3
BimenyimanaE.SciareJ.PikridasM.OikonomouK.IakovidesM.VasiliadouE.et al (2026). Persistent high PM pollution in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East: insights from long-term observations and source apportionment in Cyprus. Atmos. Chem. Phys.26 (2), 1605–1622. 10.5194/acp-26-1605-2026
4
BuX.XieZ.LiuJ.WeiL.WangX.ChenM.et al (2021). Global PM2.5 - attributable health burden from 1990 to 2017: estimates from the global burden of disease study 2017. Environ. Res.197, 111123. 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111123
5
CormierS. A.LomnickiS.BackesW.DellingerB. (2006). Origin and health impacts of emissions of toxic by-products and fine particles from combustion and thermal treatment of hazardous wastes and materials. Environ. Health Perspect.114 (6), 810–817. 10.1289/ehp.8629
6
DavisJ. M.GarbY. (2019). A strong spatial association between e‐waste burn sites and childhood lymphoma in the West Bank, Palestine. Int. J. Cancer.144 (3), 470–475. 10.1002/ijc.31902
7
FalsafiA.FalsafiA.AbdulkareemM.HorttanainenM. (2026). Assessing dioxin emissions change in the transition from landfilling of MSW to waste-to-energy. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res.33 (6), 1960–1970. 10.1007/s11356-025-37006-x
8
GinsbergG. M.KalinerE.GrottoI. (2016). Mortality, hospital days and expenditures attributable to ambient air pollution from particulate matter in Israel. Isr. J. Health Policy Res.5 (1), 51. 10.1186/s13584-016-0110-7
9
Gómez-SanabriaA.KiesewetterG.KlimontZ.SchoeppW.HaberlH. (2022). Potential for future reductions of global GHG and air pollutants from circular waste management systems. Nat. Commun.13 (1), 106. 10.1038/s41467-021-27624-7
10
Google Maps (2026). Available online at: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.9849899,34.9757099,10406m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDkwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D (Accessed June 24, 2026).
11
GordonJ. N.BilsbackK. R.FiddlerM. N.PokhrelR. P.FischerE. V.PierceJ. R.et al (2023). The effects of trash, residential biofuel, and open biomass burning emissions on local and transported PM2.5 and its attributed mortality in Africa. GeoHealth7 (2), e2022GH000673. 10.1029/2022GH000673
12
HeacockM.KellyC. B.AsanteK. A.BirnbaumL. S.BergmanÅ. L.BrunéM. N.et al (2016). E-waste and harm to vulnerable populations: a growing global problem. Environ. Health Perspect.124 (5), 550–555. 10.1289/ehp.1509699
13
IsaifanR. J. (2023). Air pollution burden of disease over highly populated states in the Middle East. Front. Public Health10, 1002707. 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1002707
14
Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection (MoEP) (2024). Pollutant release and transfer register – annual report 2024. MoEP Jerusalem, IsraelAvailable online at: https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/prtr_report/he/prtr_prtr-2024.pdf (Accessed on June 18, 2026).
15
Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection (MoEP) (2026). Air quality monitoring summary – mobile unit deployment in Shoham (Hadarim Neighbourhood and Nitzanim School), January 2026. MoEP. Jerusalem, Israel. Available online at: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/benzene-concentrations-in-shoham (Accessed on April 18, 2026).
16
Israel Ministry of Health (MoH) (2025). Update and guidance for residents on elevated air pollution in the hadarim neighborhood, Shoham Area. Jerusalem, Israel: MoH. Available online at: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/15122025-01 (Accessed on April 18, 2026).
17
LeviA.Barnett-ItzhakiZ. (2021). Effects of chronic exposure to ambient air pollutants, demographic, and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 morbidity: the Israeli case study. Environ. Res.202, 111673. 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111673
18
LeviA.Carasso RomanoG. H.Barnett-ItzhakiZ. (2025). Ground-level ozone exposure and type 2 diabetes incidence: an ecological study of environmental and social determinants. Atmosphere16, 528. 10.3390/atmos16050528
19
LevyI.KarakisI. (2024). Health Effects of Air Pollution in Israel – Premature mortality and loss of life-years. Ministry of Environmental Protection (MoEP) and Ministry of Health (MoH). Jerusalem, Israel. Available online at: https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/pm-2-5/en/air_quality_pm-2.5.pdf (Accessed on June 18, 2026).
20
LoomisD.GuytonK. Z.GrosseY.El GhissassiF.BouvardV.Benbrahim-TallaaL.et al (2017). Carcinogenicity of benzene. Lancet Oncol.18 (12), 1574–1575. 10.1016/S1470-2045(17)30832-X
21
LuoX. S.HuangW.ShenG.PangY.TangM.LiW.et al (2024). Source differences in the components and cytotoxicity of PM2.5 from automobile exhaust, coal combustion, and biomass burning contributing to urban aerosol toxicity. Atmos. Chem. Phys.24 (2), 1345–1360. 10.5194/acp-24-1345-2024
22
MuhsenM.TomaziA. (2026). Environmental and health impacts of scrap and e-waste recycling in the Western Hebron district. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.23 (1), 85. 10.1007/s13762-025-06917-0
23
OsipovS.ChowdhuryS.CrowleyJ.TadicI.DrewnickF.BorrmannS.et al (2022). Severe atmospheric pollution in the Middle East is attributable to anthropogenic sources. Commun. Earth Environ.3, 197. 10.1038/s43247-022-00514-6
24
ParkY. K.KimW.JoY. M. (2013). Release of harmful air pollutants from open burning of domestic municipal solid wastes in a metropolitan area of Korea. Aerosol Air Qual. Res.13 (4), 1365–1372. 10.4209/AAQR.2012.10.0272
25
ParvezS. M.JahanF.BruneM. N.GormanJ. F.RahmanM. J.CarpenterD.et al (2021). Health consequences of exposure to e-waste: an updated systematic review. Lancet Planet. Health5 (12), e905–e920. 10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00263-1
26
RamadanB. S.RachmanI.IkhlasN.KurniawanS. B.MiftahadiM. F.MatsumotoT. (2022). A comprehensive review of domestic-open waste burning: recent trends, methodology comparison, and factors assessment. J. Mater. Cycles Waste Manag.24 (5), 1633–1647. 10.1007/s10163-022-01430-9
27
State Comptroller of Israel (2024). Transboundary air pollution from waste burning in Judea and Samaria. State Comptroller's Office: Jerusalem, IsraelAvailable online at: https://library.mevaker.gov.il/sites/DigitalLibrary/Documents/2024/Sviva/2024-Air-Pollution.pdf (Accessed June 18, 2026).
28
SurkesS. (2025). “Stay indoors': Health ministry tells central town to shelter due to toxic waste fires.” Times of Israel. Available online at: https://www.timesofisrael.com/stay-indoors-health-ministry-tells-central-town-to-shelter-due-to-toxic-waste-fires/(Accessed April 18, 2026).
29
WangX.FirouzkouhiH.ChowJ. C.WatsonJ. G.HoS. S. H.CarterW.et al (2023). Chemically speciated air pollutant emissions from open burning of household solid waste from South Africa. Atmos. Chem. Phys.23 (24), 15375–15393. 10.5194/acp-23-15375-2023
30
WilsonD. C.PaulJ.RamolaA.FilhoC. S. (2024). Unlocking the significant worldwide potential of better waste and resource management for climate mitigation: with particular focus on the global south. Waste Manag. Res.42 (10), 860–872. 10.1177/0734242X241262717
Summary
Keywords
carcinogenic air pollutants, environmental justice, environmental policy, municipal solid waste, PM2.5, transboundary air pollution, waste management infrastructure, waste-to-energy
Citation
Levi A (2026) Illegal open waste burning in the West Bank as a dominant transboundary source of carcinogenic air pollution: a case for infrastructure-led waste management intervention. Front. Environ. Sci. 14:1946800. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1946800
Received
23 July 2026
Revised
09 August 2026
Accepted
12 August 2026
Published
11 September 2026
Volume
14 - 2026
Edited by
Hélder Tiago Da Silva Lopes, University of Minho, Portugal
Reviewed by
Lyudmila Korshunova, National University of Science and Technology MISiS, Russia
Updates
Copyright
© 2026 Levi.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Adi Levi, adile@live.achva.ac.il
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.