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Shtayyeh Calls for Probe Into Israel’s Burial of Nuclear Waste in West Bank

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh (AA)
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh (AA)
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Shtayyeh Calls for Probe Into Israel’s Burial of Nuclear Waste in West Bank

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh (AA)
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh (AA)

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called Tuesday on the international community to investigate Israel’s burial of nuclear, chemical and solid waste in the Palestinian territories.

“The cases of cancer in areas south of Hebron are the highest in Palestine, due to the burying of waste in a nearby location and the presence of a nuclear reactor,” Shtayyeh said during a conference on Climate Change organized by the Environment Quality Authority in Ramallah.

He said landfills where chemical, electronic or solid waste is collected are among the most important factors causing environmental pollution in Palestine and posing a threat to people’s health.

“Despite the measures we are taking to protect and preserve the environment, Israel continues to take measures that destroy it,” he said.

Palestine accuses Israel of using 98 landfills across the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) revealed that Israel has been transferring its dangerous and toxic wastes to the Palestinian territories, putting the life of Palestinians at stake, as well as damaging the soil and polluting the groundwater.

Also, Palestinians accuse Israel of using the West Bank as a nuclear waste dump, in addition to establishing a nuclear reactor in Negev near Hebron in the West Bank, where increasing cases of cancer have been reported.

Shtayyeh said, “We need to end the Israeli occupation, which has turned the occupied Palestinian West Bank into a massive landfill for dangerous and toxic wastes.”

He said that since 1967, Israeli authorities uprooted 2.5 million trees, including 800,000 Palestinian olive trees.

Shtayyeh also said that Palestine's annual water budget is approximately 800 million cubic meters and Israel has “stolen” 600 million cubic meters of it, adding this is part of "Israel's systematic colonialist policies to turn our lands into desert and seize them."

He added that 10 years ago, the PA adopted the Greening Palestine Program, and spent $25 million to plant new trees in the West Bank, and parts of the Gaza Strip.

“It is sad that every tree we planted in the Gaza Strip in the Beit Hanoun area was razed by the occupation forces during their repeated aggressions against the Strip,” the Palestinian PM said.

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Arab World

Eleven Children Killed, Injured Every 24 Hours in Lebanon, UN Says

Rubble lies around damaged building at the site of an Israeli strike in Tyre, Lebanon, May 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Rubble lies around damaged building at the site of an Israeli strike in Tyre, Lebanon, May 28, 2026. (Reuters)
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Eleven Children Killed, Injured Every 24 Hours in Lebanon, UN Says

Rubble lies around damaged building at the site of an Israeli strike in Tyre, Lebanon, May 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Rubble lies around damaged building at the site of an Israeli strike in Tyre, Lebanon, May 28, 2026. (Reuters)

Eleven children have been killed or injured on average every 24 hours in Lebanon over the last week, the UN's children's agency said on Friday, as Israel has expanded strikes across the country despite a ceasefire.

Heavy Israeli strikes hit towns and villages in southern Lebanon overnight on Wednesday and into ‌Thursday, after Israel declared ‌a new swathe of the ‌area ⁠a combat zone. ⁠It also struck a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday.

A total of 77 children have been killed or injured in the last seven days, UNICEF said, citing figures provided by Lebanon's Ministry of Public ⁠Health. Since the ceasefire began on April ‌16, 55 children ‌have been killed and 212 injured, according to the ‌agency.

UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires called for all ‌parties to fully respect the ceasefire.

"Under international humanitarian law, children and civilian infrastructure must be protected," he said.

The ceasefire announced by Washington was meant to ‌halt the fighting that has raged between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah since ⁠March 2.

The ⁠UN's World Health Organization also said on Friday that the threat from the expansion of military activities raised grave health concerns for the Lebanese population.

Since the ceasefire took effect, a total of 27 attacks on healthcare facilities in Lebanon have been reported, resulting in 25 deaths and 42 injuries, according to the WHO. A total of 16 hospitals and 13 primary healthcare centers have been damaged in attacks, it added.

Arab World

Israel Plan to Seize More of Gaza Means ‘More Children Will Suffer’, Says UN

Palestinian women inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP)
Palestinian women inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP)
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Israel Plan to Seize More of Gaza Means ‘More Children Will Suffer’, Says UN

Palestinian women inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP)
Palestinian women inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP)

The UN warned on Friday that an Israeli plan to take control of 70 percent of Gaza is sure to increase suffering among children already hit by the impacts of severe overcrowding.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the military to take control of more territory in the Gaza Strip, in defiance of the terms of a fragile ceasefire that took effect in October.

He said the military had controlled 50 percent of the territory under the terms of the ceasefire, then advanced to take over 60 percent.

"My directive is to move to... 70 percent," he said.

But the United Nations children's agency warned that such a move would deepen the health crisis among children in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, already suffering from a lack of food, water and access to hygiene.

Even before Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, it was "already one of the most densely populated places in the world", UNICEF spokesman Salim Oweis told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Gaza.

Today, "people have been crammed into around 40 percent of the space left to them, sheltering among broken buildings, rubble and mounting solid waste", he said, adding "there is no accessible space left to clear" the waste.

"The effects of this are now widely apparent: children with respiratory infections, acute watery diarrhea, and more than half of all households reporting skin diseases."

- Rats biting children -

"Fleas, lice and scabies are commonplace," Oweis said, also pointing to numerous cases of rats biting young children and even babies after getting into tents and other shelters for Gaza's hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Oweis told the story of a woman named Hind, who "hasn't slept since her four-year-old daughter, Masa, was bitten by a rat during the night".

"Like many families, they sheltered wherever they could, in their case, the second floor of a building block where sewage water leaks through the ceilings, and rodents crawl through the cracks in the building and climb the exposed pipes," he said.

"Increasing numbers of children are requiring hospitalization, all without a single fully functioning hospital across Gaza."

Oweis described the situation as "dire", noting the overcrowding was "creating more spread of diseases, straining the systems and of course cutting... services".

If Israel takes control of even more land, that "means that we will lose access to some of the service points, but also (to) some hard to reach places (where) children and families are living," he said.

"This will just mean that more children will suffer.

"Honestly, we can't afford that at the moment."

Despite an October 10 ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by daily violence.

Israel has killed more than 900 people in the territory since the ceasefire, according to Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

Arab World

Aoun Tells Rubio That Israel Truce Crucial to Talks Progress as Netanyahu Says Troops Crossed Litani

Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Nabatieh, Lebanon, May 29, 2026. (Reuters)
Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Nabatieh, Lebanon, May 29, 2026. (Reuters)
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Aoun Tells Rubio That Israel Truce Crucial to Talks Progress as Netanyahu Says Troops Crossed Litani

Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Nabatieh, Lebanon, May 29, 2026. (Reuters)
Smoke billows from southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike, as seen from Nabatieh, Lebanon, May 29, 2026. (Reuters)

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday that a ceasefire with Israel was crucial, as Israeli and Lebanese military delegations meet at the Pentagon.

A statement from Aoun's office said that during a phone call, the president "emphasized the need to exert all efforts to reach a ceasefire, considering it an essential gateway to moving on to any other step".

On the ground however, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israeli forces had crossed Lebanon's Litani River, which runs around 30 kilometers north of the countries' shared border.

"Our forces have crossed the Litani, they have moved up to the commanding terrain. We are operating in Beirut, in the Bekaa, across the entire front and are hitting Hezbollah head on," he said during a visit to troops near the border, according to a video released by his office.

Lebanese and Israeli military delegations were to hold security talks at the Pentagon on Friday, during which Beirut will demand Israel halt its attacks, which have intensified in recent days.

The development comes as the United States and Hezbollah's backer Iran, were negotiating with Tehran, which insists the fighting in Lebanon must be included in any agreement ending the Middle East war.

Also on Friday, the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for seven southern Lebanese towns, two of them around 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Israel.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported several strikes across the south, and a wave of displacement as people fled the threatened towns.

The attacks come a day after an Israeli strike just south of Beirut, only the second since an April 17 truce sought, unsuccessfully, to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanon's delegation includes six officers, headed by the army's director of operations, Georges Rizkallah.

A Lebanese military source told AFP the delegation will "stress the need for a ceasefire, and will present the army's plan for a state weapons monopoly and the extension of state authority across the country".

On the Israeli side, Brigadier General Amichai Levin, head of the strategic division within the army's planning directorate, is present in Washington for these talks, according to an Israeli military spokesman.

The two countries, officially at war for decades, began direct talks in April with a fourth round expected in early June.

Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc on Thursday urged Lebanese authorities to withdraw from direct negotiations with Israel, accusing Israel of "seeking to impose security coordination to benefit its aggression" in the military talks.

Israel and the US want Hezbollah disarmed, a difficult task which Beirut assigned to its military last year.

- Ground offensive -

This week, Israel vowed to ramp up operations in Lebanon and said it was expanding ground operations in the south, which most inhabitants have fled.

Residents of Marjeyoun, a Christian-majority town where some residents did not leave despite the war, received phone messages from the Israeli military on Thursday telling them not to leave the town and to avoid areas near neighboring Debbine, an AFP correspondent said.

Israeli troops reached the outskirts of Debbine overnight, according to the NNA, their latest push into Lebanese territory.

The correspondent saw Israeli tanks between Marjeyoun and Debbine.

A ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah was supposed to have taken effect on April 17 but has never been observed. Both sides accuse each other of violating it and justify their attacks by the other camp's alleged breaches.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,300 people since the start of the war on March 2, according to Lebanese authorities.

UNICEF, the UN children's agency, said Friday that 15 children have been killed and 62 wounded over the past week, with 55 children killed and 212 wounded since the ceasefire announcement.