Mt. Trashmore No More: Illegal Palestinian Dump Shut Down by Israeli NGO

The Regavim organization led a successful campaign to shut down a massive illegal Palestinian garbage dump polluting Samaria.

By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel

The Civil Administration branch of the IDF has ordered the closure of a massive illegal garbage dump the Palestinian Authority had been using just north of Jerusalem.

The organization Regavim waged a campaign to close the outlaw trash site they dubbed the “Corona Dump” and said the old quarry with its massive mountain of festering garbage “will be shut down and the criminals who created it brought to justice.”

Regavim describes itself as “a social movement promoting Zionist ideals and upholding of law and order,” and during the coronavirus lockdown its activists learned that tons of raw waste was being trucked daily from the Arab municipalities of Ramallah and El Bireh to the abandoned Tariffi quarry on Route 60.

The waste was dumped unceremoniously over the cliff into the quarry, creating a mountain of garbage visible for miles.

Regavim says it used new technology to determine that a whopping 10,000 cubic meters of waste had been dumped there, and that the dumping continued after the pandemic lockdown was lifted. Even worse, the Palestinians were following their habit elsewhere in Judea and Samaria of burning the garbage, adding toxic fumes to the already noxious stench together with the soil and groundwater pollution from the waste.

Regavim said it campaigned for several months before the Civil Administration announced this week that it will enforce the law and that the illegal dump will be shut down, adding that several garbage trucks and a tractor were impounded.

The next step in Regavim’s campaign is to get the huge mountain of garbage removed before the winter rainy season to prevent the continued pollution from the site that affects the area’s wildlife and a river into which the illegal dump empties.