As thousands of tonnes of unexploded Israeli bombs threaten lives across the Gaza Strip, the city’s mayor claims that Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy machinery are hampered by Israeli restrictions on debris removal and reconstruction of vital infrastructure.
Mayor Yahya al-Sarraj stated in a news conference on Sunday that Gaza City needs at least 250 heavy trucks and 1, 000 tons of cement to maintain water networks and build wells.
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Only six trucks, according to Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, who was reporting from Gaza’s Az-Zawayda region.
Palestinians are still buried beneath the rubble, with at least 9, 000 of them. Instead of assisting Palestinians in finding their loved ones who are still buried beneath rubble, the new equipment is being prioritized for the recovery of the remains of Israeli prisoners.
According to Khoudary, “Palestinians know the ceasefire won’t change until the bodies of all the Israeli prisoners are brought back.”
Red Cross vehicles were seen arriving after holding meetings with Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, to alert them to an Israeli prisoner’s location in southern Rafah.
The Red Cross and Egyptian teams have been permitted to travel beyond the “yellow line,” which allows Israel to control 58 percent of the besieged enclave, according to a spokesperson for the Israeli government, to search for captives’ remains.
Nour Odeh, a journalist from Amman, reported for Al Jazeera that Israel had been insisting for two weeks that Hamas had located all of the bodies of the captives.
Israel has now allowed Egyptian teams and heavy machinery to enter the Gaza Strip to assist in the enormous task of removing debris, trying to reach the tunnels, or underneath the homes or structures that the captives were held in and killed in, she said.
Odeh added that Hamas had been unable to access a tunnel for two weeks as a result of Israeli bombing-related damage. She remarked that the Red Cross and Hamas have been given the opportunity to assist in the discovery of potential burial sites beneath the rubble and that “that change of policy is coming without explanation from Israel.”
Netanyahu: “We have control over Gaza.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his political authority at home on Sunday, claiming that Israel controls how foreign forces might enter Gaza.
We have made it clear to international forces that Israel will decide which forces are against our will, and that is how we act and will continue to do so,” he said. The United States accepts this, as its most senior representatives have recently said.
Odeh explained that Netanyahu’s statements are intended to reassure Israel’s far-right base, who believes he’s no longer in charge of the affairs.
According to her, Israeli soldiers and army leaders don’t appear to be the ones currently in charge of the ceasefire, with Washington “demanding that Israel notify it of any attack that Israel might be planning to conduct inside Gaza.”
Odeh cited a wider plan to maintain political support at home as evidenced by Israel’s insistence on controlling which foreign actors operate in Gaza in addition to the country’s limited resources for reconstruction.
A threat from unexploded bombs
Unexploded ordnance poses additional challenges for reconstruction in Gaza. Gaza is “essentially one giant city” where every inch of it has been struck by explosives, according to Nicholas Torbet, Middle East director at HALO Trust in the United Kingdom.
Some munitions are intended to linger, but he told Al Jazeera, “Ordnance that is expected to explode upon impact hasn’t.”
According to Torbet, removing explosives stifle the reconstruction process. Instead of permanently closing off large areas, his teams intend to work directly within communities to safely remove bombs. He remarked that “the best way to dispose of a bomb is to use a small amount of explosives to blow it up.”
Torbet added that progress is being made and that the required equipment is starting to be moved forward. It can be moved by hand or by small vehicles.
Gaza is now rife with deadly remnants from Israeli bombings because of the scale of the debris dropped.
According to Mahmoud Basal, a Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson, Israel dropped at least 200 000 tonnes of explosives on the territory, with roughly 70 000 tonnes failing to detonate.
Particularly vulnerable children have been, frequently mistaken for toys, with bombs. Yahya Shorbasi and his sister Nabila, both 7, were playing outside when they discovered what appeared to be a toy, according to Ibrahim al-Khalili of Al Jazeera.
They discovered a typical child’s toy, not a typical one. It was being held by the girl. The boy then began to use a coin to tap it before taking it. We allored an explosion all at once. Their mother Latifa Shorbasi reported to Al Jazeera, “It went off in their hands.”
While Nabila is still receiving medical attention, Yahya’s right arm required an amputation.
The situation, according to Dr. Harriet, an emergency physician at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, is “a public health catastrophe waiting to happen.” She claimed that children are being harmed by live explosives, which appear to be harmless, like toys, cans, and other debris.
According to Luke David Irving, head of the UN Mine Action Service, 328 people have died or been injured by unexploded weapons since October 2023.
Over the course of Gaza, tens of thousands of tonnes of bombs, including landmines, mortar rounds, and large bombs designed to flatten concrete structures, are still buried. According to Basal, it could take years and be worth millions of dollars to clear the explosives.
Source: Aljazeera
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