War Is Altering Israel’s Air Pollution in Unexpected Ways

War leaves obvious damage to people and infrastructure, but a new Israeli study says it also changes air quality in less visible ways. Dr. Sarit Agami, a statistics lecturer in the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, examined air pollution across Israel during the first half-year of the Gaza war, known in Hebrew as the Iron Swords war. Her findings will be presented at the 54th Annual Conference on Science and the Environment on July 8 to 9 at the Jerusalem International Convention Center.

Agami compared areas evacuated by residents, mainly border regions where the fighting itself was intense, with areas that received evacuees and had almost no sirens. She found that many pollutants rose by tens of percent compared with the previous six years, but the pattern varied by region and by pollutant. In evacuation areas, sulfur dioxide fell by an average of 21 percent, while in the host areas it rose by 131 to 189 percent. Nitric oxide also climbed in those host areas, by an average of 139 to 146 percent.

The study also found a 70 percent increase in fine particulate matter, PM2.5, in combat areas. Dr. Zohar Barnett-Yitzhaki, head of the Environmental and Social Sustainability Research Group at Rupin Academic Center, said military activity itself pollutes through heavy vehicle traffic, artillery fire, rocket launches, interceptions, and the fires they trigger. He said nitric oxide can rise from transportation, heating, cooking, and generators, while sulfur pollution may reflect power production, heating, and industrial activity. He added that industrial output likely declined in combat zones, which may explain the sulfur drop there.

Agami said she used siren data from Home Front Command because full rocket-impact data were not available, and she drew pollution figures from the Environmental Protection Ministry’s national monitoring stations. She said internal migration was part of the picture, because population movement increased human activity and vehicle emissions in some places. The article also cites the ministry’s 2023 annual emissions report, which said wartime forest fires accounted for 44 percent of Israel’s annual carbon monoxide emissions, and that a malfunction at Orot Rabin power station released 728 tons of nitrogen oxides, while Ashdod Oil Refineries reported a 72 percent rise in sulfur oxide emissions partly due to war-related constraints.