Since its occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel has been creating facts on the ground by building Jewish settlements on large areas of Palestinian land, in clear violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states: "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." There are presently over 250 Jewish settlements in the West Bank with a population of approximately 306,000 settlers, 165,000 of whom reside in Arab East Jerusalem. The paper discusses the environmental impact of these actions such as land confiscation, bypass roads, depletion of water sources, wastewater disposal, domestic solid waste, industrial waste, and Israeli quarries.
