During a recent briefing in Geneva, a senior officer from the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), Pehr Lodhammar, shed light on the formidable task of clearing the aftermath of the conflict between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.
Lodhammar's assessment painted a stark picture, indicating that the removal of an estimated 37 million tons of debris, including unexploded ordnance, could span a daunting 14-year period under certain conditions. The densely populated coastal enclave now faces the challenge in rebuilding and restoring normalcy amid the vast expanse of rubble and potential hazards, according to Israeli I24 television.
To tackle the monumental cleanup effort, Lodhammar indicated that approximately 100 trucks would be required for a sustained 14-year operation.‘We know that typically there’s a failure rate of at least 10 percent of land service ammunition that is being fired and fails to function,’ Lodhammar said after his assessment.
Earlier the deputy United Nations (UN) food chief said northern Gaza is still heading toward a famine. "We certainly welcome those commitments and some of them have been partly implemented. Some remain to be implemented," the World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told reporters, noting that for the agency there had been an "uptick" in getting aid in and some progress in accessing northern Gaza.
Meanwhile, Egypt is sending a high-level delegation to Israel in the hope of reaching a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, while warning a possible new Israeli offensive focused on the southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt could have catastrophic consequences for regional stability, two officials said yesterday.
While in Israel, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel plans to make clear that Egypt “will not tolerate” Israel’s deployments of troops along Gaza’s borders with Egypt, an Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the mission
ZH
