Beside it, earthmovers had carved out a football field-size pit where 470 tons of rubbish per day will be dumped for the next five to seven years, according to Israeli plans.
The village of Deir Sharaf, by comparison, produces 4 tons of garbage per month.
Shaking his head in disgust at the piles of oozing rubbish, Seha, Deir Sharaf's council leader, recalled that the village council in 2000 was looking for a place to dump its own waste.
The villagers found a spot several miles outside their village, but when they started disposing waste there, Israeli soldiers stopped them and seized the village garbage truck, saying they would contaminate the ground water.
Five years later, however, the Israelis are building a dump on a site the Palestinians consider dangerous to the environment and the Palestinians can do nothing to stop them.
Seha laughed when he recounted this story, saying that if this is the relationship the Palestinians have with the Israelis, no truce will last.
"I don't talk to my son about peace," he said. "I talk to him about war."
