The chief of UN demining operations for the small Palestinian enclave stated on Wednesday that there is more war wreckage and rubble in the Gaza Strip than there is in Ukraine.
Furthermore, the risk associated with removal operations extends beyond unexploded munitions and encompasses the potential for exposure to hazardous materials like asbestos.
throughout mid-April, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) calculated that there were 37 million tonnes of debris throughout Gaza, or 300 kilogrammes per square meter.
“Gaza has more rubble than Ukraine, and to put that in perspective, the Ukrainian front line is 600 miles (nearly 1,000 kilometres) long, and Gaza is 25 miles (40 km) long,” said Mungo Birch, head of the UNMAS programme in the Palestinian territories.
But the sheer volume of rubble is not the only problem, said UNMAS.
“This rubble is likely heavily contaminated with UXO (unexploded ordnance), but its clearance will be further complicated by other hazards in the rubble,” Birch told journalists.
“There’s estimated to be over 800,000 tonnes of asbestos, for instance, alone in the Gaza rubble.” The cancer-causing mineral used in construction requires special precautions when handling.
Birch expressed his desire that UNMAS, which aims to lessen the risks associated with all kinds of explosive ordnance, would take up the role of organizing mine action in Gaza.
It has raised $5 million in finance, but in order to carry on its operations in Gaza for the next 12 months, it will require an additional $40 million.
nevertheless “the sector as a whole will need hundreds of millions of US dollars over multiple years in order to make Gaza safe again for the population” , Birch stated.
Based on an AFP calculation of Israeli official data, 1,170 people, largely civilians, were killed in Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, which sparked the Gaza conflict.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run area of Gaza reports that Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,568 individuals in Gaza, the majority of them were women and children.
