The Impossible Struggle to Demine Gaza

Por Sophie Hurwitz and Rachel Santarsiero — Mother Jones Magazine

When an Israeli quadcopter drone dropped an explosive that didn’t immediately detonate, Walaa thought her family was safe. The 30-year-old mother of five and her family were sheltering in Gaza City after fleeing the Israeli army’s bombardment of their home in Beit Hanoun. 

Without warning, the object exploded, killing Walaa’s husband, children, and six other relatives. Walaa was the only survivor. She suffered severe injuries and permanent physical disfigurements, and spent the next five months receiving treatment at Al-Quds Hospital in the Tel al-Hawa region of Gaza City—treatment which was hindered by the hospital’s shortage of medical resources. 

That’s according to an August report from the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which called the threat of explosive hazards in Gaza “ever present,” almost a year after a ceasefire agreement was signed.

“After what happened, I was afraid of everything on the ground,” Walaa said later, during an explosive ordnance risk education session by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS). “Any piece of metal, any strange object—I did not know what could kill me and what could not.”

Walaa’s story is tragically common. As of August, OCHA estimates that at least 274 people have been killed and 1,134 have been injured in 580 explosive object-related accidents across the Gaza Strip: 10 people per week on average since the war began—and even that figure is a likely undercount, Anna Simonson, a UNMAS program officer, said in an emailed statement. 

90 percent of those who are injured by explosives are civilians, mainly children, according to UNMAS Director Kazumi Ogawa. About half of Gaza’s population is under 18—and children are much more likely than adults to see a weapon and mistake it for a toy. 

Shortly after the 2025 ceasefire, the aid group Humanity & Inclusion told Reuters it would “likely take between 20 to 30 years” to clear Gaza of unexploded bombs. But international demining teams still don’t have authorization to enter Gaza and remove the explosives. Under the current ceasefire deal, Israel’s “refusal to let Gaza recover until Hamas fully disarms” also prohibits entities like UNMAS and other responders from safely defusing and removing unexploded rockets, artillery shells, grenades, and other munitions. 

“Presently, mine action partners do not have permission to move or dispose of these hazards or to conduct the full spectrum of explosive ordnance disposal activities,” the OCHA update said. “Specialized equipment required for such operations remains subject to authorization and cannot be imported at this stage.” The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to a request for comment.

Instead of cleaning up unexploded bombs in Gaza, demining teams are limited to identifying hazards and teaching residents how to identify those hazards themselves. According to OCHA, humanitarian groups have identified 1,052 explosive ordnance items in Gaza since October 2023.

The funding that demining teams in places like Ukraine rely on is harder to come by in Gaza, according to Iain Overton of the London-based Action on Armed Violence research group. The US, for example, spends millions of dollars each year on defusing and removing unexploded bombs and landmines globally—but tends to send that money to countries like Cambodia or Laos. The US spent over $20 billion providing military aid to Israel between 2023 and 2025, but is not subsidizing the removal of unexploded bombs.

“Will big donors like the US be willing to put their hands in their pockets and risk being accused of being party to the destruction?” Overton asked. “Giving large amounts of munitions to Israel, and having to then go in later to clear up those munitions—that’s a difficult framing.”

Fonte: Mother Jones Magazine