Israel’s dumping ground
“When a truck unloads its garbage, it sounds like a battle is going on in the wadi,” says Umm-Ahmed Musalah. And she knows whereof she speaks: Her house is located right at the entrance to a dump in the Palestinian village of Na’alin, about three kilometers north of Modi’in. In the two years since the site began operating, a big mound of garbage has accumulated on top of the wadi, and its outer edges are steadily encroaching on the vegetable garden and small orchard behind the house. Some of the trees have already dried out.
Even as she speaks, another truck dumps its load - construction waste this time - with a thundering noise, just two or three hundred meters from Musalah’s garden. A cloud of dust rises skyward, momentarily obscuring the tile roofs of the Hashmonaim settlement on the nearby ridge. In the course of about two hours on the afternoon of Monday, November 19, eight trucks added their loads to the mountain of garbage.
