PARIS: Unexploded bombs and shells buried in the ruins of Gaza could kill or injure thousands of people in the conflict-stricken Palestinian territory in the future, an aid organisation has warned.

The volume of ordnance dropped on Gaza during 15 months of conflict between Israel and Hamas was “mind-boggling”, said Simon Elmont, a demining expert with Handicap International — Humanity & Inclusion.

“The amount of ordnance that has been fired is an enormous quantity,” Elmont said, adding that between nine and 13 per cent of munitions fail to explode on initial impact. “It is going to be tens of thousands of unexploded ordnance, that’s for sure,” he added.

He said that the contamination level in Gaza was massive, and much of the ordnance “lies mainly within the rubble and underneath the surface of Gaza”. Hamas and Israel have agreed a ceasefire, which came into effect on Jan 19 and ushered in a fragile calm.

‘Fatal’

Elmont warned of the risk of multiple deaths and injuries as hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians return home to recover their belongings and try to rebuild. “The potential is for hundreds, if not thousands, of incidents where people potentially are injured. And unfortunately, some of those injuries will be fatal,” Elmont said.

“We know that people will start to try to find their personal effects. They will be entering damaged and destroyed buildings. They will start moving the rubble around,” Elmont added. “Our great concern now is that as they’re doing that, they will come across ordnance.” Citing recent video footage, the expert said a Gazan child had been hospitalised after another child threw a grenade at him, “believing it was a toy”.

“Making the war-ravaged territory safe from unexploded bombs is especially difficult because it is impossible to evacuate the population from the territories to be decontaminated”, he said. “The problem in Gaza is that there is nowhere to move them to,” Elmont said.

Another problem, he said, was the lack of a security force or a functioning authority to enforce safety cordons during clearance operations. “In Gaza this is unique in that those don’t exist at the moment.”

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 48,181 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data provided by Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2025