The Toxic Legacy of Genocide

Islam Elhabil 

The Electronic Intifada 

8 February 2026

Palestinian adults and children sort through garbage at a landfill north of Khan Younis with tents in the background

Displaced Palestinians at a landfill north of Khan Younis looking for plastic or paper to light a fire for cooking, 13 December 2025. Abed Rahim KhatibDPA via ZUMA Press

Before the genocidal war, daily life in Gaza included an informal but functional plastic collection system. A waste collector moved through neighborhoods using a donkey-drawn cart, calling for residents to sell plastic and scrap materials.

This activity was not only a source of income, but also an integral part of local solid waste management practices.

Households commonly separated plastic waste at the source, sorting larger plastic items such as cups, plates, toys and plastic appliances. These materials were stored and later collected by the waste collector, who transported them from one street to another.

The process provided livelihood support while simultaneously contributing to environmental protection by reducing plastic accumulation in public spaces. It created income-generating opportunities by reducing plastic accumulation in streets and directing part of the waste into limited recycling pathways, depending on available facilities and technical capacity, thereby supporting basic environmental protection and public health under blockade conditions.

Following the genocide that began in October 2023, this system collapsed, leaving plastic waste uncollected and accumulating in the environment, where it increasingly releases pollutants into air, water and human bodies.

The destruction caused by Israel extends beyond physical infrastructure. It disrupts established material management systems and reshapes the relationship between society and waste, resulting in a highly polluted environment with limited or no alternatives for mitigation, generating global consequences that extend beyond Gaza and pose broader environmental risks to the surrounding region.

After Israel cut off fuel and electricity supplies on 9 October 2023, fuel has become largely inaccessible, forcing thousands of Palestinians to confront an urgent and ongoing energy shortage.

Burning plastic to survive

As the destruction continued over months and available firewood – including salvaged doors and household materials – was progressively depleted, displaced families increasingly resorted to emergency alternatives, the most hazardous of which was burning plastic for cooking and heating.

The conversion of plastic into fuel – as is sporadically and dangerously done in Gaza under the duress of the Israeli blockade and genocide – involves a sequential process that begins with collecting plastic from different locations and sorting it by type, a task made extremely difficult under conditions of war and severe resource scarcity.

The plastic is then cut into small pieces and fed into a specialized iron furnace heated to high temperatures ranging from 400 to 600 degrees Celsius in a process commonly referred to as plastic pyrolysis, during which the material melts, vaporizes and passes through pipes as gas into a water-based cooling system, where it condenses back into a liquid. This liquid is then extracted as diesel-like fuel, while heavy residues remain and are repeatedly reprocessed in the same furnace through additional thermal cycles until a purity level of approximately 80 percent is achieved.

The entire process typically requires between eight and 10 hours, depending on the quantity and type of plastic used.

Alarmingly, and far more commonly, plastic burning occurs both in improvised clay ovens in poorly ventilated, confined spaces and as direct open burning inside displacement camps, where residents are forced to burn plastic, paper and similar waste. In both cases, the plastic can provide fuel for cooking and warmth.

This forced practice poses significant health risks, particularly to women and children, as women are typically responsible for cooking near these ovens while children remain in close proximity. Burning plastic releases dense smoke and toxic emissions inside tents, contributing to a rise in respiratory diseases, most notably asthma and pulmonary infections, especially among children, elderly people and women.

These emissions constitute a direct public health threat, effectively turning displacement tents from temporary shelters into concentrated sources of air pollution, where populations are exposed simultaneously to disease, hunger and ongoing military violence.

Burning plastic in open areas is a highly toxic process that does not merely generate smoke, but fundamentally alters ambient air quality through the release of hazardous pollutants. In enclosed settings such as displacement tents, where ventilation is extremely limited, smoke accumulates rapidly and is inhaled by people who are particularly vulnerable in these conditions.

Exposure in these conditions does not typically result in acute, isolated health events, but rather in cumulative and long-term respiratory and systemic health effects.

Environmental studies have repeatedly indicated that open residential burning of plastic waste is a major source of air pollution.

The resulting fine particulate matter is well known for its ability to penetrate deep into the respiratory system. In contexts where formal waste collection is absent, as in Gaza, open plastic burning becomes a diffuse yet significant source of air pollution, substantially increasing health risks and transforming displacement shelters into poorly ventilated environments with chronic exposure to harmful emissions.

Microplastic maelstrom

Beyond gaseous pollutants and visible smoke, plastic burning accelerates the physical and chemical breakdown of plastic materials into microplastic and nanoplastic particles. During combustion, plastic melts and partially burns, then deposits on surrounding surfaces. Upon cooling and mechanical fragmentation, it disintegrates into microscopic particles that are not visible to the naked eye.

Microscopic and spectroscopic analyses have shown that these particles retain the chemical signatures of the original plastic polymers, indicating environmental persistence and biological toxicity.

Microplastics can remain suspended in the air, damaging plants, or settle on bedding, clothing and food, leading to their repeated inhalation and ingestion. As a result, displacement tents become chronic accumulation sites for airborne microplastics, introducing an additional, largely invisible layer of pollution that poses long-term risks to respiratory health through inhalation and persistent exposure.

Military bombardment plays a central role in transforming plastic into a large-scale environmental hazard. The destruction of homes, shops, factories and warehouses generates not only concrete debris, but also substantial quantities of damaged and partially burned plastic materials, including pipes, cables, insulation, furniture and electrical equipment.

Under exposure to heat, sunlight, mechanical abrasion and repeated burning, these materials progressively degrade into microplastic particles and toxic combustion by-products that infiltrate soil, water resources and food systems.

With the collapse of formal waste management systems, plastic waste accumulates in streets, around displacement shelters and in agricultural lands due to the absence of regular collection or safe disposal sites. At the same time, severe fuel shortages and the lack of access to conventional cooking and heating sources all force residents to seek alternative energy options.

Numerous informal dumping and burning areas have consequently emerged near displaced populations.

Humanitarian aid, while essential for survival, inadvertently feeds this cycle, as plastic-packaged food and water rapidly become unmanaged waste or fuel for burning, creating a structural contradiction in which immediate survival practices intensify long-term environmental contamination and health risks.

Children represent the most vulnerable group within this exposure pathway. They grow up in environments saturated with burned plastic residues, play near plastic waste and consume food and water stored in containers reused repeatedly under unsafe conditions.

Their developing bodies are subjected to chronic exposure to pollutants at a time when laboratory facilities, environmental monitoring systems and medical treatment capacities have been severely damaged or rendered inaccessible.

In this context, plastic pollution becomes biologically embedded through prolonged exposure. Genocide, then, effectively functions as an uncontrolled system for the production and accumulation of plastic-related contamination.

Even after the cessation of hostilities, plastic-derived pollutants are expected to persist in soil, groundwater and the food chain, continuing to affect human health long after physical reconstruction begins.

Discussing the reconstruction of Gaza without addressing plastic contamination therefore neglects a critical environmental and public health dimension. Debris management is not solely an engineering challenge, but a chemical and environmental one that requires structured strategies for plastic waste treatment and remediation.

Without such interventions, reconstruction efforts risk reestablishing communities on contaminated land, embedding the toxic legacy of war into the rebuilt environment.

Islam Elhabil is an engineer from Gaza and a Malaysia-based microplastics specialist.