Nearly every second cucumber that enters Israeli supermarkets from Palestinian Authority farmers is contaminated with “extremely high” hazardous pesticides, health officials said on Monday, warning that thousands of tons of contaminated produce reached consumers.
The Knesset Health Committee heard that approximately 15,000 tons of produce are imported annually from P.A.-controlled areas, with testing showing “abnormally” high rates of pesticide residues in recent years.
Ziva Hamma, director of the Health Ministry’s Food Risk Management Department, told MKs that although regulations require produce from the P.A. to be held pending lab testing, in practice, the shipments are immediately distributed, with the results arriving days later.
Palestinian Authority farmers whose produce is found to be contaminated are barred from selling their goods to Israel for three months and subject to additional testing, officials said. Out off the roughly 3,000 P.A. farmers who do business with Israel, several hundred have been banned.
According to the data presented at the hearing, 50% of Palestinian-grown cucumbers sampled were found to contain high pesticide residues, along with 49% of tomatoes and 66% of hot peppers.
In 13% of samples, more than five different pesticides were detected, and 14% contained organophosphate compounds—neurotoxic substances that health officials say pose risks to fetal development and could, with prolonged exposure, increase the likelihood of Parkinson’s disease.
Amos Zuaretz, the ministry’s coordinator for Judea and Samaria, revealed that official regulations were bypassed due to “economic and security considerations,” in an effort to avoid harming the P.A.'s economy.
Many elements of Israel’s security brass support Palestinian Authority control over parts of Judea and Samaria as a “moderating force,” as opposed to Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist organizations.
However, after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel, “it was understood that public health is more important,” Zuaretz told MKs.
Following discussions with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit of the Israeli Defense Ministry, stricter policies requiring all P.A. produce to be held back pending lab testing are set to take effect in around eight months, the Knesset Health Committee was told.
“In my opinion, we must not allow agricultural produce from the Palestinian Authority to enter at all,” said Health Committee Chairwoman Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit Party).
“I do not trust my enemy to grow my food for me when it can easily be poisoned. I call on anyone who can afford it: Make sure to purchase Israeli agriculture. We have excellent farmers, wonderful produce, fresher, healthier and most important—more Zionist,” she said.
“The reason for not holding the goods is the Civil Administration,” she said, accusing it of favoring “the shelf life of the goods and the Palestinian economy over safeguarding public health in Israel.
“Citizens of Israel: You are being poisoned,” Son Har-Melech charged.
“Despite 45% of samples being contaminated,” the lawmaker continued, “there are those who prioritize the livelihood of our enemies over the health of the citizens of the State of Israel.”
Likud Party lawmaker Amit Halevi called on those who contracted cancer as a result of eating poisoned Palestinian produce to bring a lawsuit against the commander of the Civil Administration who issued the regulations.
“Israeli citizens have been sick with cancer for years because of this produce, and the Health Ministry is silent,” the MK said. “The Agriculture and Health ministries have failed in their duties and mission and obeyed the Civil Administration in poisoning citizens.”
Halevi said that while official data indicates that the quantity of P.A. produce entering the Jewish state has dropped from 70,000 tons to 14,000 tons, the actual level of imports “has not changed.
“What has changed is the increase in smuggling,” the lawmaker said.
