GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — “The other boys told me they were buckets of lentils,” says 8-year-old Joud Ahmad Al-Angar, describing a container of small black pellets he and his cousins found in rubble near their tent in Gaza City.
His 12-year-old cousin, Zain Nour, thought the pellets looked like chunks of coal that might help start a fire for cooking. They brought the bucket home. Adults told them to return it, so Joud tossed it back — and it detonated.
Phone video shared with NPR shows the two boys staggering from the blast, screaming and covered in blood. Zain’s father, Mohammad Nour, arrived to find the children thrown through the air. “We found each of them in a different place. I found my son hanging on a fence, bleeding. Both of them had shrapnel lodged in their bodies,” he says.
At Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital days later, the boys share a bed in a crowded ward. Their hair is dust-coated, skin blackened by blast residue. Dime-sized scabs from pellet shrapnel speckle their bodies; larger wounds ooze. Joud’s scalp was torn and stitched. Mohammad Nour says the hospital initially lacked painkillers and surgeons; with many surgeons gone from northern Gaza, they await operations to remove remaining shrapnel.
Unexploded ordnance is widespread across Gaza, residents and responders say. The United Nations Mine Action Service estimates 5% to 10% of Israeli weapons fired into Gaza over the past two years failed to detonate, leaving unexploded munitions that have killed at least 328 people — including 24 since a ceasefire began Oct. 10.
“We receive daily calls from citizens reporting unexploded bombs,” says Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Civil Defense in Gaza. “They’re in buildings, under buildings, on roofs, and on the roads, and these include enormous war missiles, missiles from drones, bombs, the list goes on.” Basal estimates tens of thousands of tons of unexploded ordnance litter the territory. He adds that many of the trained colleagues who could defuse bombs “have been killed in Israeli attacks.”
Nick Orr, chief of operations for the nonprofit Humanity and Inclusion in Gaza, says locating and clearing these weapons in densely populated Gaza is extraordinarily difficult. Each discovered bomb requires a safety cordon and evacuation, but with 2.4 million people living in tight quarters, “you would need an 800-meter cordon in Gaza City,” he says. “Can you imagine how that could be achieved right now? It’s impossible.”
Orr compares the devastation to the worst postwar scenes in history. “It’s biblical,” he says. “If you look at World War II photographs of Berlin and Paris and London, it’s exactly the same thing.” Clearing unexploded ordnance could take decades, he warns: surface clearance might require 20–30 years, while items will likely be found for generations.
Before systematic clearance can begin, Orr says an internal security force is needed to manage evacuations during dismantling operations. Under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire plan, formation of an international stabilization force has been proposed, but that could take months. Orr envisions a “patchwork” approach: teams move into areas, issue evacuation notices, and clear zones — but people must have somewhere safe to go, meaning more internal displacement.
A high-ranking official in Gaza’s interior ministry, speaking off the record, told NPR that under the ceasefire plan unexploded bombs are being treated as part of Hamas disarmament because the group sometimes recycles munitions. The official said Israel is targeting civilians who try to handle unexploded ordnance. The official also said Israel and Hamas have agreed to allow Egyptian teams to manage cleanup; an Israeli military spokesperson replied to NPR with “no comment.”
For families living among the rubble, daily life continues despite the danger. Tents are set up beside ruined buildings and unexploded munitions. Scavenging bombed sites for anything useful has become common, especially as many have lost homes and livelihoods. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured over the past two years.
After their ordeal, Joud and Zain say they will avoid searching near bombed buildings in future. “We are now too scared to go poking around near bombed-out buildings,” Joud says, his face marked by scabs and stitches. “Next time we will stay far, far away.”
Anas Baba reported from Gaza City. Rob Schmitz reported from Tel Aviv. Ahmed Abuhamda contributed from Cairo; Jawak Rizkallah from Beirut.
