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As the ceasefire agreement tentatively holds and Palestinians return to their homes in hopes of rebuilding after Israel’s genocide, Gaza officials estimate that there are massive amounts of rubble and unexploded bombs that stand in the way of their efforts, potentially laying in wait to cause further harm.
On Thursday, the Gaza Government Media Office reported that officials estimate that there are 20,000 unexploded ordnances scattered across Gaza, including missiles and bombs dropped by Israeli forces. These pose a “grave threat” to the lives of Palestinian civilians and workers, and clearing them must be prioritized in order to mitigate further harm, the office said.
The UN has warned of these harms and has teams working on removing them. The UN has recorded 324 deaths, including 91 children, from unexploded ordnance since October 7, 2023, in Gaza.
This count may be far higher, and the UN has warned that casualties will only grow in coming weeks as Palestinians return to previously inaccessible areas amid the ceasefire. The UN Mine Action Service has previously estimated that 5 to 10 percent of weapons dropped on Gaza did not detonate and have become hazards.
The Gaza Government Media office also noted that there are between 65 million and 70 million tonnes of rubble across the Strip as a result of Israel’s campaign of all-out destruction.
“This rubble includes thousands of homes, facilities, and vital infrastructures deliberately destroyed by the [Israeli] occupation forces, turning the [Gaza] Strip into an environmentally and structurally devastated area and obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid and relief efforts,” the office said.
However, the process of clearing this rubble to rebuild isn’t possible without heavy machinery that Israel has blocked from entering Gaza, the officials noted.
“The process of removing this massive rubble faces severe obstacles, most notably the lack of heavy equipment and machinery due to the Israeli occupation’s ban on their entry, the complete closure of border crossings, and the deliberate prevention of bringing in the materials and machinery necessary to recover the bodies of victims,” the office went on.
This debris will pose a major obstacle for Palestinians in efforts to reconstruct — if they are allowed to without interference from Jared Kushner and Tony Blair’s neocolonial fantasies for Gaza.
The UN has estimated that it will take $70 billion just to reconstruct Gaza, with $20 billion needed in just the first three years alone. UN Development Programme official Jaco Cilliers noted this week that the UN has already removed 81,000 tonnes of rubble, or 3,100 truckloads. This is less than 0.1 percent of the 70 million tonnes that Gaza officials estimate is present.
Israel is still blocking large swaths of necessary supplies and aid from entering Gaza, despite the ceasefire. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has reported that the agency has enough supplies to sustain Gaza’s population for three months, as the population reels from Israel’s famine campaign. However, UNRWA says that Israel is blocking the entry of the supplies, despite them sitting just outside of Gaza, ready for entry.
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