Palestinian Civil Defense: Disease will spread from the 10,000 decomposing bodies buried under the rubble in Gaza

05/02/2024 / By Belle Carter

In a statement released on Tuesday, April 30, the Palestinian Civil Defense warned that the possibility of the spread of disease from the decomposing bodies buried under the rubble is inevitable in the Gaza Strip this summer.

According to the release, high temperatures this hot season will likely increase the threat of an epidemic, as heat accelerates the decomposition of corpses. “The General Directorate of Civil Defense renews its appeal to all relevant parties, led by the United Nations and the World Health Organization… to urgently intervene,” the statement reads. It also indicated that it is important to “allow the entry of heavy equipment necessary to enable our crews to save the lives of those wounded by the ongoing Israeli bombing, as well as to extract the bodies of the martyrs that are decomposing under the rubble and are causing a health disaster for the population.”

To date, there are an estimated 10,000 Palestinians buried under the debris of buildings flattened by the violent and untargeted Israeli strikes in the enclave. The majority of those killed and buried are children and women. The civil defense further lamented that it would take two to three years to recover all the bodies unless digging equipment, which has been destroyed by Israel, is urgently replaced and allowed into the war-ravaged strip.

Moreover, rescuers were only able to reach previously declared inaccessible areas on April 7, after Israeli troops pulled out from Gaza’s populated areas. Using basic tools, they recovered some decomposed corpses from under the debris of buildings earlier this week. They were also able to recover more than 700 bodies found in mass graves at al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital. (Related: More than 13,000 people are missing in Gaza as bodies pile up beneath the rubble.)

Apart from the constant targeting of Israeli troops, the basic tools would not suffice for them to dig deeper into the wreckage. They would need heavy digging machinery. “Civil defense crews in the northern Gaza governorate embarked on these efforts, with the support of residents and volunteers using available simple hand tools,” the rescuers said. “In light of the lack of heavy equipment such as bulldozers and excavators, these efforts will remain insufficient and will not meet the minimum requirements necessary to recover the bodies of thousands of martyrs.”

Meanwhile, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza released an update as of Wednesday that at least 34,568 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory during almost seven months of war between Israel and the militant, political group Hamas. Also, 77,765 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7. Also, at least 67 civil defense members have been killed.

The widespread destruction of infrastructure and roads is complicating rescue efforts. The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimates there are 37 million tons of ruins in Gaza left by the intense Israeli attacks on residential buildings for seven months. It could take 14 years to safely clear the debris, according to Pehr Lodhammar, a senior officer from the UNMAS. “All I can say is that at least 10 percent of the ammunition that is being fired potentially fails to function…With 100 trucks we’re talking about 14 years of work, so that’s 14 years with about 750,000 workdays – person workdays – to remove the debris,” Lodhammar said earlier this week.

Gaza filled with more potential “toxic war debris” than Ukraine

The head of UN demining operations for the narrow Palestinian territory said Wednesday that the beleaguered enclave is filled with more war debris and rubble than Ukraine. Said ruins are potentially also filled with possible toxic substances such as asbestos.

“Gaza has more rubble than Ukraine, and to put that in perspective, the Ukrainian front line is 600 miles (nearly 1,000 kilometers) long, and Gaza is 25 miles long,” said Mungo Birch, head of the UNMAS program in the Palestinian territories. But the volume of rubble is not the only problem. Birch added that the debris is likely heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance or UXO, but its clearance will be further complicated by other hazards in the rubble. “There’s estimated to be over 800,000 tons of asbestos, for instance, alone in the Gaza rubble,” he said. The cancer-causing mineral used in construction requires special precautions when handling.

Birch said he hoped UNMAS, which works to mitigate the threats posed by all types of explosive ordnance, would become the coordination body for mine action in Gaza. It has secured $5 million of funding but needs a further $40 million to continue its work in Gaza over the next 12 months. However, “the sector as a whole will need hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars over multiple years to make Gaza safe again for the population,” Birch added.

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