KHAN YOUNIS: The Gaza Strip is strewn with undetonated explosives from tens of thousands of Israeli air strikes, leaving the territory “uninhabitable,” according to the US government.
In February, US President Donald Trump suggested the United States take over Gaza and take responsibility for clearing unexploded bombs and other weapons, to create the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The challenge to clear the lethal remnants, examined here in detail for the first time, is huge.
Israel’s bombardments resumed in March after a January ceasefire fell apart — an offensive that the United Nations said has captured or depopulated two-thirds of the enclave. More bombs fall daily.
By October 2024, Israel’s military said, it had carried out over 40,000 air strikes on the Strip. The UN Mine Action Service estimates that between one in 10 and one in 20 bombs fired into Gaza did not go off.
Those weapons are among more than 50 million tons of rubble which according to the UN Environment Programme are scattered across Gaza, a densely populated area far smaller than the State of Rhode Island.
"Inhumane"
Gaza’s own cleanup efforts started quickly. Near the city of Khan Younis a week after the January ceasefire, bulldozer driver Alaa Abu Jmeiza was clearing a street close to where 15-year old Saeed Abdel Ghafour was playing. The bulldozer blade struck a concealed bomb.
“We were engulfed in the heat of the flames, the fire,” the boy told Reuters. He said he had lost sight in one eye. Driver Jmeiza also lost sight in one eye and has burn and shrapnel injuries on his hands and legs.
Since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, at least 23 people have been killed and 162 injured by discarded or unexploded ordnance, according to a database compiled by a forum of UN agencies and NGOs working in Gaza — an estimate that aid workers say must be a fraction of the total, since few victims know how to report what has happened to them.
Hamas has said it harvested some unexploded ordnance for use against Israel, but also is ready to cooperate with international bodies to remove it.
However, international efforts to help clear the bombs during any lulls in the fighting have been hampered by Israel, which restricts imports into the enclave of goods that can have a military use, nine aid officials told Reuters.
Between March and July last year, Israeli authorities rejected requests to import more than 20 types of demining equipment, representing a total of over 2,000 items — from binoculars to armored vehicles to firing cables for detonations — according to a document compiled by two humanitarian demining organizations seen by Reuters.
“Due to the restrictions by the Israeli authorities on mine action organizations to allow the entry of necessary equipment, the clearance process has not started,” UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told Reuters.
This poses “serious unnecessary challenges” to humanitarians involved, he added.
Under the 1907 Hague Convention, Israel has an obligation as an occupying power to remove or help remove war remnants that endanger the lives of civilians, said the UN human rights office and the International Committee of the Red Cross. This is an obligation that Israel accepts as binding under customary international law even though it is not a signatory, said Cordula Droege, the ICRC’s chief legal officer.
Israel’s military declined to answer questions about what munitions it has used in Gaza for security reasons, and did not respond to a request for comment on the extent of leftover ordnance. COGAT, the Israeli military agency that oversees shipments into Gaza, did not respond to requests for comment on its role in cleanup efforts. Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel said most of the explosives have been scattered by Hamas, without providing evidence.
A Hamas official declined to answer a question about how many weapons it has used in Gaza or how much remains as unexploded ordnance.
“We have repeatedly stressed that Gaza is uninhabitable and to force Gazans to live among unexploded ordnance is inhumane,” said Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council.
“President Trump has offered a humanitarian vision to rebuild Gaza and we continue to have discussions with regional partners on next steps,” he added, without answering questions on weapons supplied by the US, or its plans for the clean-up.
10 years, $500 Million
Seven weapons experts participating in UN-coordinated discussions on clearance efforts told Reuters it is too early to estimate how many unexploded munitions are in Gaza as there has been no survey. Most asked to remain anonymous, saying that to speak publicly about the weapons contamination or clearance challenges may interfere with their chances of working in Gaza.
The UN Mine Action Service, which removes explosive remnants, educates locals and helps victims, said its disposal teams have spotted hundreds of pieces of war ordnance on the surface, including aircraft bombs, mortars, rockets and Improvised Explosive Devices.
It expects many more may be concealed either in the rubble or lodged underground as “deep-buried bombs.”
Reuters found a bomb more than a meter long on a trash heap in Gaza City, spoke to a man in Nuseirat who said he had to live in a refugee camp because the authorities could not remove a bomb he found in his home, and to others who were still living in a building in Khan Younis beneath which an unexploded bomb was said by police and local authorities to be buried in the sand.
A UN report said two bombs were found at Gaza’s Nuseirat power plant. Gary Toombs, an explosive ordnance disposal expert with Humanity & Inclusion, an aid group, said he had seen bomb remnants being used to prop up homeless shelters. Reuters could not verify these reports.
The Egyptian foreign ministry, which has also presented a reconstruction plan for Gaza, said in March that removing unexploded ordnance would be a priority during the first six months of that project. Removing debris would continue for another two years. A foreign ministry official did not respond to a request for additional details.
Even if Israel cooperated unreservedly, a forum of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations called “the protection cluster” estimated in a document published in December that it could take 10 years and $500 million to clear the bombs.
4,000 duds
Explosive or not, the ruins contain elements like asbestos and contaminants, the UN Environment Programme says — plus thousands of bodies of Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
“The damage in Gaza is similar to an enormous earthquake and in the middle of it there’s a few thousand bombs to make it more difficult,” said Greg Crowther, Director of Programmes at the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a global humanitarian and advocacy organization that finds, removes and destroys unexploded bombs after conflict.
“You’ve got the incredibly long process of rebuilding and then these items mean it will take even longer.”
Taking Israel’s reported 40,000 air strikes as a basis, a 10 percent failure rate implies that even if each strike contained just one bomb there would be around 4,000 duds — not including naval or ground strikes or remnants left by Hamas and its allies.
Some experts like MAG’s Crowther think the bombs’ failure rate may be higher than one in 10 in urban centers, since bombs do not always detonate when piercing through multi-story buildings — especially ones that are already damaged.
“This is the most technically challenging and worst humanitarian situation I’ve ever seen,” said Toombs. He has demined in places including Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and Lebanon over a 30-year career.
“It’s going to be incredibly difficult.”
Data on the Israeli strikes from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) shows there have been strikes on Gaza almost every day. In total, the ACLED database shows over 8,000 air strike events — a term that can include multiple individual strikes.
ACLED said that by the end of 2024, Israel had carried out more than nine times as many air strikes as a US-led coalition had in the Battle of Mosul in Iraq in 2016-2017.
Mark 80 Bombs
Palestinian police say they lack equipment to safely clear the debris.
Salama Marouf, the head of the Hamas-run government media office, said 31 members of the police engineering division who deal with weapons clearance had been killed and 22 injured since the war, including while defusing bombs.
Basem Shurrab, the mayor of Al-Qarara town where the January 27 bulldozer explosion occurred, called for international teams to come and help the cleanup.
But those groups say they would need Israel to give the go-ahead for expert visas, armored vehicles, explosives and tunnelling equipment to extract buried bombs.
For now, deminers say they can only mark ordnance and seek to avoid accidents, especially involving children.
Murals and posters commissioned by charities including the Red Cross and Red Crescent show colorful balloons to attract children’s attention next to drawings of bombs and a skull and cross bones.
One shows a boy with an alarmed expression with a thought bubble reading: “DANGER: war ordnance.”
The heaviest class of bombs used in Gaza are the Mark 80s, of which the Mark 84 — a US-made, 2,000 pound aircraft bomb nicknamed the “hammer” by US pilots during the first Gulf War — is the biggest.
The Biden administration sent thousands of Mark 84s to Israel before pausing deliveries last year over concerns about the risk to civilians — a pause since reversed by Trump.
Reuters reporters found two Mark 80s lying in the ruins of Khan Younis, surrounded by red and white warning tape. Three weapons experts identified them from Reuters images. They said they appeared to be Mark 84s, but they could not be sure without measuring them.
If a Mark 84 bomb were to detonate it would leave a crater 14 meters wide, destroy everything within a 7 m radius and kill most people within a 31 m radius, according to PAX, an NGO working for peace based in the Netherlands.
The blast can shower lethal shrapnel fragments nearly 400 m, according to the US airforce. In a landscape as densely populated as Gaza, that could be catastrophic.
Living with a bomb
Hani Al Abadlah, a 49-year-old school teacher, returned to his home in Khan Younis after the January ceasefire to discover that an unidentified bomb had pierced through all three floors without detonating.
It is now believed to be nestled a few meters in the sand beneath his hallway, according to municipal officials and the police explosives engineering unit.
Three weapons disposal experts said a very heavy bomb such as a Mark 84 could have plunged into the deep sand, but added that it could have been removed before Al Abadlah returned — possibly to be reharvested by armed groups.
Al Abadlah said the rest of his family including his wife and children refused to move back because they were too afraid. But he prefers to live in his own damaged home with his brother and the suspected bomb rather than return to a cold tent.
He sleeps on the middle floor and his brother on the floor above.
“No one ... enters out of fear,” he said. “We now are trying to stay in the upper floors, far from where this war remnant is.”
The unexploded bombs of Gaza
https://arab.news/m42hc
The unexploded bombs of Gaza
- Since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, at least 23 people have been killed and 162 injured by discarded or unexploded ordnance
- International efforts to help clear the bombs during any lulls in the fighting have been hampered by Israel
Lebanon aims to lure back wealthy Gulf tourists to jumpstart its war-torn economy
The retro-themed event was hosted last month by Lebanon’s Tourism Ministry to promote the upcoming summer season and perhaps recapture some of the good vibes from an era viewed as a golden one for the country. In the years before a civil war began in 1975, Lebanon was the go-to destination for wealthy tourists from neighboring Gulf countries seeking beaches in summer, snow-capped mountains in winter and urban nightlife year-round.
In the decade after the war, tourists from Gulf countries – and crucially, Saudi Arabia – came back, and so did Lebanon’s economy. But by the early 2000s, as the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah gained power, Lebanon’s relations with Gulf countries began to sour. Tourism gradually dried up, starving its economy of billions of dollars in annual spending.
Now, after last year’s bruising war with Israel, Hezbollah is much weaker and Lebanon’s new political leaders sense an opportunity to revitalize the economy once again with help from wealthy neighbors. They aim to disarm Hezbollah and rekindle ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which in recent years have prohibited their citizens from visiting Lebanon or importing its products.
“Tourism is a big catalyst, and so it’s very important that the bans get lifted,” said Laura Khazen Lahoud, the country’s tourism minister.
On the highway leading to the Beirut airport, once-ubiquitous banners touting Hezbollah’s leadership have been replaced with commercial billboards and posters that read “a new era for Lebanon.” In the center of Beirut, and especially in neighborhoods that hope to attract tourists, political posters are coming down, and police and army patrols are on the rise.
There are signs of thawing relations with some Gulf neighbors. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have lifted yearslong travel bans.
All eyes are now on Saudi Arabia, a regional political and economic powerhouse, to see if it will follow suit, according to Lahoud and other Lebanese officials. A key sticking point is security, these officials say. Although a ceasefire with Israel has been in place since November, near-daily airstrikes have continued in southern and eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah over the years had built its political base and powerful military arsenal.
Tourism as a diplomatic and economic bridge
As vital as tourism is — it accounted for almost 20 percent of Lebanon’s economy before it tanked in 2019 — the country’s leaders say it is just one piece of a larger puzzle they are trying to put back together.
Lebanon’s agricultural and industrial sectors are in shambles, suffering a major blow in 2021, when Saudi Arabia banned their exports after accusing Hezbollah of smuggling drugs into Riyadh. Years of economic dysfunction have left the country’s once-thriving middle class in a state of desperation.
The World Bank says poverty nearly tripled in Lebanon over the past decade, affecting close to half its population of nearly 6 million. To make matters worse, inflation is soaring, with the Lebanese pound losing 90 percent of its value, and many families lost their savings when banks collapsed.
Tourism is seen by Lebanon’s leaders as the best way to kickstart the reconciliation needed with Gulf countries — and only then can they move on to exports and other economic growth opportunities.
“It’s the thing that makes most sense, because that’s all Lebanon can sell now,” said Sami Zoughaib, research manager at The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based think tank.
With summer still weeks away, flights to Lebanon are already packed with expats and locals from countries that overturned their travel bans, and hotels say bookings have been brisk.
At the event hosted last month by the tourism ministry, the owner of the St. Georges Hotel, Fady El-Khoury, beamed. The hotel, owned by his father in its heyday, has acutely felt Lebanon’s ups and downs over the decades, closing and reopening multiple times because of wars. “I have a feeling that the country is coming back after 50 years,” he said.
On a recent weekend, as people crammed the beaches of the northern city of Batroun, and jet skis whizzed along the Mediterranean, local business people sounded optimistic that the country was on the right path.
“We are happy, and everyone here is happy,” said Jad Nasr, co-owner of a private beach club. “After years of being boycotted by the Arabs and our brothers in the Gulf, we expect this year for us to always be full.”
Still, tourism is not a panacea for Lebanon’s economy, which for decades has suffered from rampant corruption and waste.
Lebanon has been in talks with the International Monetary Fund for years over a recovery plan that would include billions in loans and require the country to combat corruption, restructure its banks, and bring improvements to a range of public services, including electricity and water.
Without those and other reforms, Lebanon’s wealthy neighbors will lack confidence to invest there, experts said. A tourism boom alone would serve as a “morphine shot that would only temporarily ease the pain” rather than stop the deepening poverty in Lebanon, Zoughaib said.
The tourism minister, Lahoud, agreed, saying a long-term process has only just begun.
“But we’re talking about subjects we never talked about before,” she said. “And I think the whole country has realized that war doesn’t serve anyone, and that we really need our economy to be back and flourish again.”
US mulls giving millions to controversial Gaza aid foundation, sources say
- The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said
WASHINGTON: The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established UN aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
Gaza hospital officials have said more than 80 people had been shot dead and hundreds wounded near GHF’s distribution points between June 1-3.
Since launching its operation, the GHF has opened three hubs, but over the past two days, only two of them have been functioning.
Witnesses blamed Israeli soldiers for the killings. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on two days, while on Tuesday it said soldiers had fired at Palestinian “suspects” advancing toward their positions.
Activist boat says rescues migrants en route to Gaza
- The Madleen has “a 12-member crew of peaceful activists” headed for Gaza “with the aim of breaking the blockade of Palestine by the state of Israel,” the March to Gaza Greece group said
ATHENS: A vessel organized by an international activist coalition to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza has rescued several migrants from the sea near Crete, a support group in Greece said on Friday.
The Madleen, launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, said it had received a distress signal from a boat in the Mediterranean, forcing it to change course off the coast of Crete.
The Madleen has “a 12-member crew of peaceful activists” headed for Gaza “with the aim of breaking the blockade of Palestine by the state of Israel,” the March to Gaza Greece group said.
“Upon arrival (at the scene), it discovered that the boat was sinking with approximately 30-35 people aboard.”
At that point, the Madleen was approached by a ship that initially identified itself as Egyptian.
“The activists aboard the Madleen quickly realized that this was a false identification and that the ship was, in fact, a Libyan coast guard vessel,” they said.
“Libya is not considered a safe country and for this reason some of the refugees jumped into the sea to avoid being returned there.
“The Madleen rescued four Sudanese individuals who had jumped into the water and brought them aboard.”
After several hours of calls for assistance, a Frontex vessel eventually picked up the rescued individuals, the group said, referring to the European Union’s border and coast guard agency.
The Madleen sailed from Sicily on Sunday.
Those on board include climate activist Greta Thunberg.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, launched in 2010, is a non-violent international movement supporting Palestinians.
It combines humanitarian aid with political protest against the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the critical humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.
It blocked all aid into Gaza on March 2. The United Nations warned on May 30 that the entire population of more than two million was at risk of famine.
Fighters from Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
A total of 1,218 people died, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Since October 2023, Israel’s retaliatory war on Hamas-run Gaza has killed 54,677 people there, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The United Nations deems the health ministry figures to be reliable.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Iraq frees Australian, Egyptian engineers after four years, but keeps travel ban
- Both men were sentenced to five years in prison and fined $12 million, the working group said
BAGHDAD: Iraq has released an Australian mechanical engineer and his Egyptian colleague who were detained for more than four years over a dispute with the central bank, authorities said Friday, though the two remain barred from leaving the country.
Robert Pether and Khalid Radwan were working for an engineering company contracted to oversee the construction of the bank’s new Baghdad headquarters, according to a United Nations report, when they were arrested in April 2021.
A report from a working group for the UN Human Rights Council said the arrests stemmed from a contractual dispute over “alleged failure to execute certain payments.”
Both men were sentenced to five years in prison and fined $12 million, the working group said.
A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Pether, in his fifties, was released “due to his poor health.”
Australian media have previously reported that the family suspected Pether had developed lung cancer in prison and that he had undergone surgery for skin cancer.
A second Iraqi official confirmed the release of Radwan, adding that he was not allowed to leave the country until a “final decision” was made regarding his case.
Australia’s ABC broadcaster quoted the country’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, as welcoming the release and saying the Australian government had raised the issue with Iraqi authorities more than 200 times.
Simon Harris, foreign minister for Ireland, where Pether’s family lives, posted on X: “This evening, I have been informed of the release on bail of Robert Pether, whose imprisonment in Iraq has been a case of great concern.
“This is very welcome news in what has been a long and distressing saga for Robert’s wife, three children and his wider family and friends.”
Speaking to Irish national broadcaster RTE, Pether’s wife, Desree Pether, said her husband was “not well at all” and “really needs to just come home so he can get the proper medical care he needs.”
“He’s completely unrecognizable. It’s a shock to the system to see how far he has declined,” she said.
Syrian leader makes first visit to cradle of country’s uprising
- SANA published footage showing a cheering crowd greeting Sharaa
- Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab visited Daraa’s historic Omari mosque during the trip
DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Friday visited the southern city of Daraa, the cradle of the country’s uprising, for the first time since ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad almost six months ago.
State news agency SANA published footage showing a cheering crowd greeting Sharaa, who was seen waving and shaking hands with people during the visit, which came on the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha.
Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab visited Daraa’s historic Omari mosque during the trip, the presidency said in a statement, releasing images of the visit showing the leader among the crowd.
SANA also said he met with local civil and military officials, as well as a delegation from the Christian minority.
Provincial governor Anwar Al-Zoabi said in a statement that the visit was “an important milestone in the course of national recovery.”
In 2011, young boys who had scrawled graffiti against Assad were detained in Daraa, sparking nationwide protests.
After the war erupted following the brutal repression of protests, rebels seized control of Daraa and hung on until 2018, when the city returned to Assad under a deal mediated by Russia that allowed former fighters to keep their light weapons.
On December 6, as Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led a lightning offensive on Damascus from the country’s northwest, a coalition of armed groups from Daraa province was formed to help oust Assad, who was toppled two days later.
The province was plagued by unrest in recent years.
