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It could take 14 years to remove debris left by Israel war on Gaza: UN

A Palestinian man carries belongings as he walks through the rubble of a destroyed residential building following an Israeli strike, in Hamad City, amid Israel's ongoing war on Gaza, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Reuters)

A United Nations official says Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has left dozens of tons of rubble, including unexploded ordnance, which could take nearly 14 years to remove.

“We estimate 37 million tons of debris, which is approximately 300 kilos of debris per square meter,” Pehr Lodhammar, senior officer at the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), said at a briefing in Geneva on Friday.

He said it was impossible to determine the exact number of unexploded ordnance found in Gaza, noting that “We know that typically there is a failure rate of at least 10% of land service ammunition, ammunition that is being fired and fails to function.”

“One number I can give you is that an estimation has been done based on the current number of tons of debris in Gaza ... we're talking about 14 years of work with 100 trucks.”

He noted that 65% of the buildings that have been destroyed in the narrow, densely populated strip “are residential buildings.”

Israel launched the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 34,305 Palestinians and injured 77,293 others.

 


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