JERUSALEM — War has left Gaza littered with unexploded bombs that will take years to clear, with children drawn to metal casings maimed or even killed when they try to pick them up, a demining expert said.
Nicholas Orr, a former UK military deminer, told AFP after a mission to the war-battered Palestinian territory that "we're losing two people a day to UXO [unexploded ordnance] at the moment."
According to Orr, most of the casualties are children out of school desperate for something to do, searching through the rubble of bombed-out buildings sometimes for lack of better playthings.
"They're bored, they're running around, they find something curious, they play with it, and that's the end," he said.
Among the victims was 15-year-old Ahmed Azzam, who lost his leg to an explosive left in the rubble as he returned to his home in the southern city of Rafah after months of displacement.
"We were inspecting the remains of our home and there was a suspicious object in the rubble," Azzam told AFP.
"I didn't know it was explosive, but suddenly it detonated," he said, causing "severe wounds to both my legs, which led to the amputation of one of them."
He was one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returning home during a truce that brought short-lived calm to Gaza after more than 15 months of war, before Israel resumed its bombardment and military operations last month.
For Azzam and other children, the return was marred by the dangers of leftover explosives.
'Attractive to kids'
Demining expert Orr, who was in Gaza for charity Handicap International, said that while no one is safe from the threat posed by unexploded munitions, children are especially vulnerable.
Some ordnance is like "gold to look at, so they're quite attractive to kids", he said.
"You pick that up and that detonates. That's you and your family gone, and the rest of your building."
Another common scenario involved people back from displacement, said Orr, giving an example of "a father of a family who's moved back to his home to reclaim his life, and finds that there's UXO in his garden".
"So he tries to help himself and help his family by moving the UXO, and there's an accident."
With fighting ongoing and humanitarian access limited, little data is available, but in January the UN Mine Action Service said that "between five and 10 percent" of weapons fired into Gaza failed to detonate.
It could take 14 years to make the coastal territory safe from unexploded bombs, the UN agency said.
Alexandra Saieh, head of advocacy for Save The Children, said unexploded ordnance is a common sight in the Gaza Strip, where her charity operates.
"When our teams go on field they see UXOs all the time. Gaza is littered with them," she said.
'Numbers game'
For children who lose limbs from blasts, "the situation is catastrophic", said Saieh, because "child amputees require specialised long-term care... that's just not available in Gaza".
In early March, just before the ceasefire collapsed, Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza. That included prosthetics that could have helped avoid long-term mobility loss, Saieh said.
Unexploded ordnance comes in various forms, Orr said. In Gaza's north, where ground battles raged for months, there are things like "mortars, grenades, and a lot of bullets".
In Rafah, where air strikes were more intense than ground combat, "it's artillery projectiles, it's airdrop projectiles", which can often weigh dozens of kilograms, he added.
Orr said he was unable to obtain permission to conduct bomb disposal in Gaza, as Israeli aerial surveillance could have mistaken him for a militant attempting to repurpose unexploded ordnance into weapons.
He also said that while awareness-raising could help Gazans manage the threat, the message doesn't always travel fast enough.
"People see each other moving it and think, 'Oh, they've done it, I can get away with it,'" Orr said, warning that it was difficult for a layperson to know which bombs might still explode, insisting it was not worth the risk.
"You're just playing against the odds, it's a numbers game."
