ISTANBUL
A UK-based humanitarian group is surveying unexploded Israeli ordnance in Gaza to ensure safety in the Palestinian territory.
Members of Humanity and Inclusion UK, working with Handicap International in Gaza, examined and marked Sunday explosive remnants of Israel’s war in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
The group toured the neighborhoods and carried out an initial assessment of the unexploded bombs in the area.
“We’re here today to mark this airdropped bomb that landed in the building behind us,” said one of the team members.
“First of all, we want to, identify it. Secondly, we need to know if it’s safe and thirdly, we need to prioritize when we can remove it and keep everybody around us safe,” they added.
“It’s important to message the people of this community that we do not touch these items, we do not play with them, and we don’t stand on them. We report them when we recognize them and then we leave them alone,” they said.
“That way we can keep people safe. They are not toys. They are devastating,” they added.
Israel has launched a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 Hamas incursion of southern Israel killed around 1,200 people.
More than 34,400 Palestinians have since been killed and thousands injured in Israel’s brutal war, amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.
More than six months into the conflict, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling shortage of food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide, and guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
