“You opened a wound and put salt in it,” said Dr. Nafez Khader
Mansour, president of the Wadi Qana Agricultural Charitable
Association, when we spoke to him about the Wadi Qana area, where he
spent his childhood and youth.
Khader, who is 64 years old now, said: “I was born in Wadi Qana, I
lived there and I know it inch by inch,” recalling his life there
before the Israeli settlement incursion: “It was a green area,
covered with trees and woodlands, and sprouting with saris,
terebinth, oak, and various other forest trees.”
As a 10-year-old boy, Mansour used to visit the area with other
villagers to hike and pick wild natural plants such as sage or
mushrooms.
Mansour, like many Palestinians, is now denied the right to hike in
these forests, after Israel acquired the area and began transforming
it into several settlements, such as Karnei Shomron and Ginot
Shomron.
The area of Karnei Shomron settlement, located in Wadi Qana between
Qalqilya and Salfit governorates, amounted to 1,042 dunams, of which
at least 92 dunams were built on nature reserves, according to maps
provided by the Geomolj Geospatial Information System in Palestine,
which was provided to us by the Director of the Lobbying and
Advocacy Department at the Union of Agricultural Work Committees,
Muayad Bisharat, who emphasized that all statistics extracted from
the system cover the period up to 2019.
Satellite imagery shows the continued expansion of the settlement
between 2019 and 2023.
Move the cursor to view the image before and after
2023
2014
In the same valley, satellite imagery shows the expansion of the
settlement of Neve Oranim; that was once a plateau covered with
trees and vegetation, and has become a concrete block between 2014
and 2023.
Move the cursor to view the image before and after
2023
2014
According to Bisharat, official Palestinian Geomolj maps indicate
that more than 120 new detached housing units were built in the
settlement in 2014, on an area of 14 dunams, some of which are
located within the nature reserves.
The same applies to the Ginot Shomron settlement. According to
Muayad Bisharat, director of the Lobbying and Advocacy Department at
the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the settlement has carved
out 21 dunams from the nature reserve, according to Geomolj maps.
Satellite imagery shows urbanization in the northeast parts of the
settlement between 2014 and 2023.
Move the cursor to view the image before and after
2023
2014
Mahmoud Fatafta, Director General of Media and International and
Public Relations at the Ministry of Agriculture in Ramallah,
emphasizes that deforestation and the destruction of natural
habitats negatively affect biodiversity, ecological balance, and the
local climate, as trees provide shade and cooling through
evaporation, without which local temperatures would rise.
Deforestation also leads to increased carbon emissions and higher
levels of suspended particulate matter in the air, which negatively
affects air quality, as trees are able to absorb carbon dioxide from
the air through photosynthesis. When trees are cut down, the stored
carbon is released into the atmosphere, leading to higher global
temperatures, according to Fatafta.
Measurements of the proportion of suspended particulate matters in
the air from Monitoring Unit 7, the closest monitoring unit to
Qalqilya, indicate that air quality in the region has deteriorated
in recent years; while the region experienced only one day of
“unhealthy” air quality in 2018, air quality has been classified as
“unhealthy” for 88 days between January and September 2024.
Measurements of the carbon content in the region's air also show
that 2020 saw an increase in the average carbon content, compared to
2018.
Dr. Nafez Khader Mansour, looking at satellite imagery, says
examining the changes that have taken place at the site: “The
transformation of natural reserves into concrete blocks and
settlements is sad in every sense of the word.”
Jenin's lost forests
Yaqoub Zaid al-Kilani, a Palestinian government employee who lives
in the village of Nazlet al-Sheikh Zaid, north of the town of Ya'bad
in the Jenin governorate, remines occasionally about his childhood
memories of playing in and around the forests of Ya'bad, which used
to connect Palestinian villages. At the time, settlements had not
yet been established, and the large areas of the governorate were
not fenced off with walls that prevented Palestinians from crossing.
Al-Kilani grew up among farmers and accompanied them while herding
their cattle in the forested areas cultivated since the Ottoman
times, the direct British mandate, and the Jordanian jurisdiction
period; “there was nothing to prevent us from accessing those
areas,” he says.
The Palestinian employee follows the recent changes caused by
settlements construction, saying: “Settlements have destroyed the
vegetation, bulldozed the land, and replaced the picturesque and
natural views with concrete blocks.”
Among the settlements Kelani describes is Mevo Dotan, which was
built on an area of 400 dunams that was covered with forest trees,
according to the Palestinian Land Research Center.
Satellite imagery taken between 2016 and 2023, shows the cutting of
cultivated areas south of the settlement and the construction of
several buildings.
Move the cursor to view the image before and after
2023
2016
In 2023, Israeli Decision No. יוש/2/6/166 was issued regarding the
conversion of agricultural areas in Hananit settlement in Jenin
governorate into a residential area, containing ten housing units.
Satellite imagery shows urban sprawl throughout the settlement
between 2016 and 2023.
Move the cursor to view the image before and after
2023
2016
Going back to Geomolj's certified maps, Bisharat says: “Since 2016,
15 dunams of vegetation on the northern side of Hananit settlement
were removed to build 60 new housing units, bringing the number of
housing units in the settlement to 170 in 2019.”
Satellite imagery also shows a significant expansion in the built-up
areas of the Shaked settlement in Jenin governorate. Between 2016
and 2019, 45 separate buildings, comprising about 90 housing units,
were constructed, according to the Union of Agricultural Labor
Committees (UALC).
Urbanization also accelerated during the same period in the
settlement of Immanuel, with cultivated areas in the southeast of
the settlement disappearing in 2023, to be replaced by residential
buildings.
Move the cursor to view the image before and after
2023
2016
Statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture indicate
that about 14,460 dunams of forests were cut down in Jenin
governorate between 1970 and 2023, while Salfit and Qalqilya
governorates witnessed a decrease in forest areas of 5082 dunams
during the same period.
The importance of planted cover
According to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
in the US state of Connecticut, forests help reduce the pace of
climate change, by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and
absorbing and storing it, as the increase in carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere is known to be the key driver of climate change.
Mahmoud Fatafta, director general of media and international and
public relations at the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture,
explained that the area of forests in the West Bank - including
Jerusalem - and the Gaza Strip constitutes only four percent of the
total Palestinian territory, which is low compared to other
countries in the world, where forests constitute about 31 percent of
the total land area.
The forests of Jenin governorate are characterized by their
adaptation to local environmental conditions, and their importance
stems from their ability to control and influence the local climate,
as they provide shade and moisture, helping to modify temperatures
and minimize the effects of extreme weather events.
According to Ministry of Agriculture estimates, between 10 and 15
percent of trees have been removed in Jenin, and between 20 and 40
percent of trees were lost in Wadi Qana.
Moayad Bisharat, director of the Lobbying and Advocacy Department at
the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, said that the Wadi Qana
reserve includes Saris, Terebinth, eucalyptus, fig and gondola
trees, noting that it enjoys a diversity of wildflowers, birds and
mammals, such as the mountain gazelle, red fox and bat, while the
forests of Jenin and its surroundings include a range of Palestinian
natural forest trees and shrubs, such as Pine, Cypress, Oak, Carob,
Sumac, cress and henna.
Industrial facilities
Not only have housing units been built in forest and bush areas, or
in areas classified as nature reserves, but industrial areas have
also expanded at the expense of vegetation in the occupied West
Bank.
In Jenin governorate, the Shahak industrial zone, located east of
the Shaked settlement, gradually expanded between 2016 and 2023,
according to satellite imagery.
Move the cursor to view the image before and after
2023
2016
Factories in the Shahak Industrial Zone include Steele-deco Ltd,
founded in 2003, which imports and exports timber, A. Shitzer LTD,
which specializes in the distribution of chemicals, and Tyrec Ltd,
a rubber factory founded in 2007.
A report published by the Palestinian Applied Research Institute
on June 5, 2024, titled “The Impact of Occupation and
Environmental Challenges on Palestine,” attributed the
environmental degradation and pollution caused by Israeli
industrial zones in settlements to “their lack of proper
environmental regulations, which leads to significant land and
water pollution, as hazardous waste from these industries
contaminates Palestinian agricultural land and water sources,
posing serious health risks to the local population.”
Environmental researcher at the Land Research Center, Engineer
Raed Muwaqaddi, said: “The West Bank includes several Israeli
industrial zones, and these industrial zones are not subject to
international law in the treatment of waste, whether solid, liquid
or even gaseous, because they are located in the West Bank, which
means that they are not subject to Israeli laws directly, and at
the same time, they are not subject to international standards for
waste disposal in general.”
The environmental researcher also focuses on the Shahak industrial
zone, saying: “It was actually established in 1995, but it began
to be active in 2001... Shahak includes a number of factories
related to the petrochemical industry, such as plastics, as well
as derivatives of some leather and iron.”
The chemical industry is one of the industries that emit
greenhouse gases that cause global warming. The petrochemical
industry, in particular, is one of the most air-polluting
industries, as it relies on fossil fuels that negatively affect
the environment and pose a health threat to communities near the
factories.
This investigation was published with the support of ARIJ
