Israeli authorities have pushed forward with plans for a massive waste treatment and energy conversion plant on stolen Palestinian land in Qalandiya village, northwest of occupied Jerusalem, prompting strong condemnation from Palestinian officials who warn it is part of a systematic effort to ethnically cleanse and Judaize the area.

The Jerusalem Governorate, in a powerful statement issued Thursday, slammed the decision as a dangerous escalation in Israel’s ongoing campaign of land theft and demographic engineering against Palestinian communities in and around occupied East Jerusalem. The project would see the confiscation of approximately 278 dunams of privately owned Palestinian land, far exceeding earlier proposals, through rerouting the illegal separation wall deeper into Palestinian territory.

This land grab directly threatens around 40 Palestinian homes and vast stretches of productive agricultural land planted with olive trees, grains, and vegetables — the lifeblood of local families for generations. Palestinian leaders emphasize that the move is not merely about infrastructure but a deliberate strategy to uproot residents, destroy their livelihoods, and erase their historical presence from their ancestral homeland.

Under the plan, Israeli occupation authorities aim to build a large-scale facility to incinerate waste, including plastics and other materials, with the produced energy funneled directly into Israel’s electricity grid. The project’s roots trace back to June 2024, when a Jerusalem municipality-linked company was ordered to find a site, with Qalandiya’s fertile lands unfairly targeted despite existing homes and farmland. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich further advanced the theft in April 2025 by reactivating old, illegitimate land confiscation orders from the 1970s and 1980s.

Palestinian officials have firmly rejected Israel’s cynical claims that the facility is an “environmental” project. Instead, they describe it as a textbook case of environmental racism, where Israel dumps its polluting infrastructure on Palestinian communities while reaping the benefits for its illegal settlements. Residents fear severe health risks from toxic emissions, foul odors, airborne particles, and contamination of soil and groundwater — dangers that will disproportionately harm children, the elderly, and farming families already struggling under occupation.

“The project violates international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly prohibits an occupying power from seizing private property and exploiting occupied land for its own gain,” the Governorate stressed.

By forcing this hazardous facility onto Palestinian territory, Israeli authorities continue their broader policy of settlement expansion, land annexation, and the creation of irreversible facts on the ground to consolidate control over occupied Palestinian territory. This latest provocation comes amid intensifying pressures on Palestinian communities through home demolitions, settler violence, and resource theft.

The Jerusalem Governorate has urgently called upon the United Nations, international human rights organizations, environmental advocates, and the global community to intervene immediately, hold Israel accountable for its violations, and stop this unjust project before more Palestinian land is lost and more families are displaced.

This struggle in Qalandiya is not isolated — it reflects the daily reality of occupation, where Palestinian rights to land, resources, and a dignified life are systematically denied in favor of Israeli expansionist goals. (ILKHA)