The Gaza War: The Strip’s unexploded bombs, time bombs after the war

The team that Birch works within needed an entire month to safely remove a single deep-seated aerial bomb during previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas. Birch added that 10% of munitions do not work as designed, which subsequently constitute explosive remnants of war, but this percentage varies depending on the type of weapon.

It is not known exactly how many bombs and ammunition the Israeli army has used since the beginning of the fighting, but the army confirmed in a statement to the BBC that it had carried out more than 30,000 air strikes since last October. Earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant stated that the army dropped 10,000 bombs during the first twenty-six days of the war, about 384 bombs per day.

While a report by the HUMAN AND INCLUSION organization (known in some countries as Handicap International), which is concerned with protecting civilians from explosive weapons, quoting the government media office in Gaza, indicates that 45,000 bombs were dropped during the first eighty-nine days of the war, or about 505 bombs per day.

In a statement to Radio France Internationale, Jean-Pierre Delumier of Handicap International said that 3,000 bombs out of 45,000 dropped by the Israeli army on Gaza did not explode, which poses a great danger to civilians and reflects the scale of the crisis.

In addition to the time and cost element, there are other challenges in how to extract these munitions in a safe manner. According to UNMAS, unexploded bombs lie underground, and in the case of Gaza, they disappear under tons of rubble, which UNRWA estimates at more than 23 million tons. Of course, there is a risk that they will explode later, which will constitute an obstacle to reconstruction operations in the devastated Strip.

There are also research papers that mention that these bombs may move from the place of their fall to other places and up to the surface in a process called bomb drifting, and their path at that time is determined by many factors such as the way they were planted in the soil depending on the angle at which they fell and also the presence of solid or flexible obstacles. It may change its course.

Last December, CNN quoted an American intelligence report that between 40% and 45% of the bombs that Israel dropped on Gaza were unguided free-fall bombs, or what are known as dumb bombs, which are less accurate than they might be. A greater threat to civilians.

When asked whether these bombs were used during the military operation on Gaza, an Israeli army spokesman said that unguided munitions are used by armies all over the world, and that they are still used accurately and are launched at specific points via aircraft systems to launch precise raids, as he put it.

Israel did not disclose the specific types of munitions it used, but experts, such as Brian Kastner, a weapons expert at Amnesty International, suggest that it used unguided Mark 84 bombs with navigation devices attached to them to guide them, based on the extent of the destruction in Gaza. This species poses a great challenge to extract, especially in a densely populated area like the Gaza Strip, Kastner said.

“The challenge with Mark 84 bombs lies in their large size. They weigh about 900 kilograms, half of them are explosive materials and the other half are steel, and they can hit civilians hundreds of meters away… Therefore, they must be transported to a place and disposed of safely, and Gaza is very small geographically. It will be a problem.” Really difficult,” according to Custer, who also pointed out the danger of remaining unexploded bombs for long periods without being safely removed, as the capabilities of their safety fuses decline as time passes.

Kastner added that the rockets launched by Hamas may have higher failure rates for manufacturing technology teams, and that they may pose a similar crisis if they fall and are buried in the ground. He also emphasized Hamas’ ability to recycle unexploded bombs dropped by Israel.

“Because aerial bombs are mostly made of steel and the explosives are inside them, it is possible to cut them up, use the explosives, and repackage them into other weapons. There are increasing reports that they are using high explosives that are officially manufactured by recycling what comes out of Israeli weapons,” Kastner said.

For its part, the Israeli army told the BBC that its forces in Gaza are combing the areas radically after engineering activities in order to remove explosive ordnance that has not been activated and ensure that it is free of it. But the Israeli army did not respond to our question about the areas they combed and removed unexploded bombs from, or how to do so while the military operation continued and the debris was present. An Israeli army spokesman told the BBC that the army does not disclose details.

In 2003, the international community adopted a protocol to limit the effects of explosive remnants of war that holds the signatory parties responsible for these munitions if one of them is a party to the conflict, but Israel is not among the signatory parties.

Asked whether Israel would take responsibility for removing unexploded ordnance in Gaza, an IDF spokesperson told the BBC, “The army is promoting the establishment of a dialogue with international partners who do not have a balance of cooperation with Hamas or other terrorist organizations, in order to enable the removal of materials.” Explosives left in the field by terrorist organizations and Hamas, as well as unexploded ordnance resulting from IDF activities.”

He added that the army seeks to create a safer environment for the residents of the Gaza Strip and prevent Hamas from using explosive materials against the civilian population in Israel, without talking about how this could be done amid the current challenges.

There are Palestinian teams in Gaza to remove mines and unexploded ordnance, but they suffer from weak capabilities. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, there are millions of explosive remnants of war in more than 80 countries around the world, some of which have been fighting the crisis for decades. These wastes represent a constant threat to civilians, as every step of their daily activities is surrounded by fears that they will lose their lives or limbs as a result of their explosion upon unintentional contact. Unexploded ordnance hinders reconstruction operations and also affects agricultural lands, contaminating them and making them uncultivable.