Ramallah: Amir Adeeb Awad and his two brothers have to visit the hospital regularly for treatment of bronchial asthma and skin diseases. Their health problems are a direct result of unauthorised Israeli factories built in the heart of the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank.

Amir told Gulf News that the factories pose a serious health threat to children of the neighbourhood and parents are reluctant to let them out to play, especially during the summer.

Amir's family keeps several nebulisers at home, hoping they won't have to make regular trips to the doctor. "We avoid going out to play and stay home to spare ourselves the suffering," he said.

The smoke and smell emanating from the factories is also sickening children at nearby schools all too frequently despite the best efforts of school managements to take precautions.

"We have no place to hide from the factories which have ruined our lives," says Amir.
Whenever children in his area venture out, they pull cartons or plastic masks over their faces to prevent direct contact with pollutants, and nebulisers have become very common among the younger lot, he adds. "We use the nebuliser almost like a toy. Each child knows how to get one loaded with the medicine and administer it," he said.

Amir's father Adib Hosni Awad told Gulf News that he had sought medical advice in Amman and masks had been recommended as absolutely necessary.

Adib said that the number of factories continued to increase in the area, making the nasty smell, smoke, and noise unbearable. "The way the factories are run proves beyond doubt that the Israelis are intent on forcing residents out of their houses and seizing their lands to expand their factories," he said.

Employment dilemma
Mahmoud Al Natour, another resident living close to the factories, told Gulf News that the managements of the factories were also employing threat tactics: surveillance cameras installed facing the street are used to target workers whose relatives dare to protest.

The threats are not in vain. Eman and her cousin Umm Haitham of the Al Fayyah family declined to comment on the death of their brother from cancer. "If we do, at least four of our breadwinners will lose their jobs on the spot," they said. "Should there be another place to work in, our relatives would not stay a single moment in those factories," they say.

Residents feel the Palestinian leadership should provide alternative job opportunities before they can think of raising their voice against the factories.

Ten unauthorised factories that have no approvals either from the Israeli or Palestinian authorities have sought out the heart of Tulkarem to escape environmental standards, making the city's western and southern sectors among the world's most polluted areas. Tulkarem tops the list of Palestinian cities with an abnormally high number of cancer patients.

Catastrophic
"The environmental situation in Tulkarem is completely catastrophic," Essam Qasim, who heads the Environmental Quality Authority in the city, told Gulf News.

Israel moved the first chemical factory from Tel Mond to Tulkarem's south and seized a plot of land owned by the Islamic Waqf for the purpose, after residents of Tel Mond protested against the unit. "From that moment, Israel has been shifting factories that raise concern among the Israeli public one after the other to Tulkarem," Qasim said.

"Huge private Palestinian owned lands have been expropriated to expand the area dedicated for factories," he added.

Israelis of the nearby colony of Netsani Oze had earlier complained about the environmental impact of the factories and lodged a complaint with the Israeli Higher Court demanding their immediate closure.

The Palestinian National Authority recently conducted a medical study which revealed that respiratory, chest, skin and eye diseases are nearly reaching epidemic proportions in the southern and western areas of Tulkarem.

Speaking to Gulf News, Eyad Jallad, Tulkarem's mayor, said the city's civic departments had demanded via the Israeli-Palestinian Civil Affairs Liaison Office that the factories halt operations. "So far, we have not received any answers on this issue from the Israeli side," he said.

"We will wage a legal battle with Israel on the issue," he said.

(By Nasouh Nazzal, Gulf News, 11/02/2012)