The Israeli army has been shelling the Gaza Strip for more than five months in retaliation for the October 7 attack perpetrated on the Jewish state by Hamas and its allies.
While Benjamin Netanyahu's government has vowed to annihilate the Islamist movement in power in the Palestinian territory, Israeli bombings have ravaged the Gaza Strip and left more than 30,000 dead according to figures from the Hamas Health Ministry.
In addition to the intensive daily shelling, and the famine which threatens to spread in the coastal strip already plunged into a major humanitarian crisis, an equally deadly danger hovers over the Gazan population, that of unexploded ordnance.
Explosive remnants of war (ERW) are munitions that did not explode on impact during a conflict, whether due to a technical malfunction or not, or which were abandoned on the battlefield or knowingly left behind. to kill.
“Missiles, rockets, artillery shells, cluster munitions… This is a set of munitions that did not explode at the time they were launched, or that are programmed to explode later and trap people or vehicles, such as anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, explains Anne Héry, director of advocacy at Handicap International. These explosive remnants of war, extremely dangerous for anyone who finds themselves in contact with or near them, continue to kill and mutilate, during and long after the end of a conflict, and prevents the return of displaced people to their homes.
More than 2 million residents trapped
The NGO has been active for several decades with populations exposed to the danger of weapons, munitions and explosive devices in armed conflicts.
And she constantly warns against explosive contamination in the Gaza Strip, where the conflict continues due to lack of agreement on a truce including new releases of Hamas hostages and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
“In Gaza, the population is subjected to one of the most intense bombing campaigns in military history, underlines Anne Héry. There is a number of strikes, bombings and artillery fire which is absolutely phenomenal in terms of pace and concentration. According to our estimates, over the five months of the war, we have been at a rate of 500 bombs per day."
Anne Héry recalls that the Palestinian coastal strip is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet and one of the most vulnerable due to the extent of the destruction caused by the bombings which destroyed vital infrastructure for the population.
“It is a territory from which the 2.2 million inhabitants cannot flee and in which they find themselves trapped and subjected day and night to bombings of extreme intensity,” she adds. comparison, the area bombed by the Israeli army is roughly equivalent, in surface area, to a French metropolis like Toulon, but with five times more inhabitants.
A territory already contaminated during previous conflicts
The NGO, which recalls that civilians represent 90% of the victims of explosive weapons when they are used in populated areas, indicates that it is very difficult to know the total extent of the level of contamination by remnants of war in Gaza, because that the conflict is still active.
"It is estimated that 45,000 bombs were dropped on the Gaza Strip during the first three months of the conflict. However, based on a failure rate of between 9 and 14%, it is possible that several thousand bombs did not function as planned and that they did not explode on impact and found themselves scattered throughout the ruins and on all surfaces of the territory", continues Anne Héry.
According to Handicap International, ERW risks costing new human lives in Gaza, and causing complex and disabling injuries, temporary or permanent, which require immediate access to emergency care, which is often impossible in a war context. .
“Certain injuries caused by explosive remnants of war require lifelong support, without forgetting the psychological trauma which marks the victims, sometimes entire communities, for many years, explains Anne Héry. And this, not only when you have been a victim or when you have lost loved ones, but also when you have lived for weeks in fear of bombs.”
Not to mention that the Gaza Strip was already contaminated by Israeli explosive remnants of war from previous conflicts between Hamas and the Israeli army.
“The Palestinian territory has suffered bombing campaigns on numerous occasions in recent decades, so there was, before the current war, a significant problem of contamination of certain areas,” recalls Anne Héry. Knowing that Gazans do not have the means to clean up their territory themselves, we will have to use heavy, complex and costly means to deal with this significant increase in explosive contamination.
And continues: "Any conflict generates explosive remnants of war which can remain underground, in ruins for decades. In the case of Syria and Ukraine several decades will be necessary to clean up."
Long-term pollution
According to the NGO, the scourge is global since one in two countries in the world is affected by REG.
Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Iraq and Yemen are the most contaminated nations, with bombing and shelling having permanently infested large parts of their territory.
"Even today in France
,
we find bombs dating from the First World War, and there are still demining actions in Laos while the contamination dates from the Vietnam War, points out Anne Héry. So we can really imagine that in Gaza, once a ceasefire has been concluded, it will take an extremely long time to clear up pollution.
Long-term pollution which risks having a heavy and lasting impact on the daily lives of Gazans, as explained by the director of advocacy at Handicap International.
Because in their urban context, where buildings are collapsed, in ruins or damaged, explosive remains are not only a permanent danger, but they will also impact, in the long term, their daily lives and social development. -economic of their territory.
"When it comes to clearing layers of rubble littered with potentially lethal remains, which our demining specialists have described, in certain cities in Syria impacted by the war, as a thousand sheets of explosives, or when it comes to to return to rebuild, the danger is extreme, confides Anne Héry. These explosive remains have, in the long term, an extremely strong impact because they are an obstacle to reconstruction, to the delivery of humanitarian aid and to the resumption of economic life by also contaminating all access routes, restricting travel possibilities and rendering agricultural land and public or public infrastructure unusable.”
Read alsoFamine in Gaza: in the North, “people have nothing left to eat”
A dramatic situation which causes its share of frustrations and risky behavior.
"The situation in Gaza is so desperate from a humanitarian point of view, with very little access to water and famine, that people sometimes want to return to their destroyed homes to find food, at the risk of "adopt sometimes extremely dangerous behaviors which are exacerbated in contexts of extreme shortage, maintains Anne Héry. Our teams try to warn the population, with prevention and information actions on the dangers of remnants of war".
As Israel is not a signatory to the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines, nor to the cluster bomb convention, nor to the political declaration against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, Handicap International considers that international humanitarian law requires it.
"International humanitarian law requires that States, belligerents, take all precautions to protect civilians, not to directly target people, buildings, equipment, and property and so that there is no disproportionate damage caused to people or property based on the expected military advantage", concluded Anne Héry.
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