Gaza – Together – The ongoing Israeli aggression against Gaza, since last October 7, has left behind millions of tons of collapsed building rubble filled with non-explosive ordnance, which will take more than a decade to remove, according to what the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ reported, quoting an official. Senior deminer at the United Nations.
Per Lodhamar, former head of the United Nations Mine Action Agency in Iraq, said that the Israeli war on Gaza left 37 million tons of debris, most of it filled with unexploded bombs, which could take more than a decade to remove.
Lodhamar added, in a press conference in Geneva, that after nearly seven months of war, there is an average of 300 kilograms of rubble per square meter of land in Gaza.
He continued: “Based on the current amount of rubble in Gaza, with 100 trucks, we are talking about 14 years of work to remove it.”
He pointed out that as the war continues, it is impossible to estimate how long the cleansing process may take at its end.
The occupati
on army faces charges of committing “domestic homicide”, due to the intensity of the bombing campaign it launched in Gaza, which turned large areas of the Strip into rubble.
Lodhamar said that 65% of the destroyed buildings in Gaza were residential, noting that the process of clearing and rebuilding them will be slow and dangerous work, due to the threat posed by shells, rockets or other weapons buried in collapsed or damaged buildings.
Lodhamar said that, on average, about 10% of munitions did not explode when they were fired, and they must be removed by demining teams.
The Israeli aggression on Gaza led to the death of 34,388 Palestinians, the majority of whom were women and children, and the injury of 77,437 others, within nearly seven months, according to the health authorities in Gaza.
The Israeli aggression also turned a large part of the narrow coastal strip, with a population of 2.3 million people, into rubble, and most civilians became homeless, suffering from hunger and the risk of disease.
Aft
er more than 200 days of continuous Israeli aggression, the Gaza Strip turned into an almost uninhabitable place, as the occupation army destroyed 35% of the buildings in Gaza, according to previous United Nations statistics.
But the greatest danger that threatens to claim the lives of more Gazans, even after the end of the aggression, is the unexploded ordnance buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings as a result of the Israeli bombing.
Earlier this month, the international humanitarian organization Handicap International said that Israel dropped 45,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip from October 7 to mid-January, and that at least 3,000 of them did not explode, posing a threat to the residents of the Strip.
Radio France Internationale quoted Jean-Pierre Delomier, the organization’s deputy director of international operations, as saying: ‘There are 3,000 bombs out of these 45,000 bombs that have not exploded, and they will pose an additional danger to civilians when they return to the areas from which they we
re displaced, at a time when they must be distributed.’ Humanitarian aid.”
Delomier, who visited the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip during the current war, said that his organization is waiting for a ceasefire in Gaza, in order to have a clear vision on this matter, and to begin the work of removing mines and bombs left by the war.
The American newspaper “Washington Post” quoted Charles Burch, an explosive clearance expert at the United Nations Mine Action Service, as saying last December that Gaza is currently filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of unexploded ordnance, ranging from makeshift rockets to high-tech munitions that Provided by the United States to Israel, he added, “The pollution will be unbelievable, like something from World War II.”
Birch, who visited Gaza at the height of Israel’s bombing campaign, said these unexploded ordnances may be the most widespread threat, because they will outlast the war, posing risks to civilians for generations. Even in times of relative peace
in Gaza, bombs left over from previous rounds of fighting regularly killed and maimed, and the problem is now exponentially worse.
Source: Maan News Agency