A Danish NGO has warned that explosive weapons used in a densely populated area like the Gaza Strip will continue to endanger civilians even after the war stops.
“These remnants of war, which do not explode immediately or may have been left behind during fighting, pose a long-term threat to civilians, often causing injury and death long after the fighting has ended,” Corinne Lenkar of the Danish Refugee Council wrote in a report published on Monday.
The NGO based in the Gaza Strip estimates, after a several-week investigation, that explosive ordnance, whether exploded or not, is present in many populated areas in the devastated Palestinian enclave.
The report stated that 70% of those surveyed return to areas where fighting occurred, where they are at risk of injury from these explosive weapons, from which the remains of unexploded bombs and missiles could be.
With the scarcity of humanitarian aid that Israel allows into the Strip, the survey indicates that Gazans lack everything, and as they search for “basic necessities among the rubble” they could be vulnerable to these weapons.
The report adds that “only 19% of victims of explosive ordnance receive first aid,” noting that children are particularly at risk because they may think that these explosive weapons are just toys or scrap.
“Israel uses weapons indiscriminately in civilian areas, repeatedly and in violation of international humanitarian law,” Lenkar said.
Even before the current war, which has been going on for more than a year, explosive ordnance was already a problem in the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to repeated Israeli bombing for more than 10 years.
The report notes that these munitions “will continue to kill and maim long after the conflict ends.”
With American support, since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza, leaving about 149,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. .
