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Minister of Health Asserts Israel Buried 80 Tons of Nuclear Waste in oPt
from International Press Center
Entered into the database on Thursday, May 19th, 2005 @ 14:29:56 MST


 

Untitled Document GAZA, Palestine, May 16, 2005 (IPC) - - The Minister of Health, Dr. Thohni Al Wuheidi, asserted that the Israeli authorities have buried 80 tons of Nuclear waste near the city of Nablus.

The Minister added that the waste were buried 300 meters away from Nablus, while the burial of more nuclear waste was still being completed around the rest of Gaza Strip and West Bank cities, especially those with high population intensity such as Nablus, Hebron and Gaza.

Dr. Al Wuheidi noted that this would affect the environment, and pollute the aquifer water with radiation, confirming previous warnings of Dr. Yousef Abu Safiyya, the head of Environment Quality Authority, who condemned the Israeli violations of the environment in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt).

Dr. Abu Safiyya said in a press conference at IPC on April 10 that these violations contradict the international humanitarian law and the global environment treaties, considering the establishment of a waste landfill near Nablus the most dangerous violation against the Palestinian people.

He called on the UN agencies interested in environment to halt the Israeli transgressions, which endanger both the human beings and natural resources.

Abu Safiyya added, during the conference, that the issue of the Israeli environmental violations were more dangerous than the Apartheid Wall, explaining that the Wall can be torn down at any moment, while the environment and natural resources take hundreds or thousands of years to be mended.

He warned that since the Israeli occupation of 1967, there has been a systematic destruction of the Palestinian life and the possibility of living, in order to pressure Palestinians to abandon their lands. "Palestinians are killed directly, by bullets, rockets and shelling, but they are also killed silently and slowly for dozens of years now, through the pollution of their water sources, soil, plants and food," Abu Safiyya stressed.