In this report, we monitored through open sources data, the erosion of green vegetation and the cutting down of trees, as a result of the accelerated pace of settlement expansion in seven settlements and an industrial zone in the occupied West Bank.
Jabal Abu Ghneim, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, was once green, but now, it is full of concrete, a settlement inhabited by about 30,000 Israelis.
Israel changed the classification of this area from a “nature reserve”, to make it a construction zone so that it could cut down trees, and build in the area starting from 1997.
Israel has been expanding settlements at the expense of green vegetation, despite United Nations Resolution 2334 of 2016, which stipulates that establishing settlements and expanding existing ones in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal.
In this report, we monitored through open sources the erosion of green vegetation and the cutting of trees, as a result of the accelerated pace of settlement expansion in seven settlements and an industrial zone in the occupied West Bank.
Between 2001 and 2023, the area of tree cover in Palestine decreased by 21 hectares.
Forest areas shrank from about 320,000 dunams in 1970, to 245,000 dunams in 2023.
Building on a nature reserve
“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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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