A post by Jean-Pierre Delomier

On February 21, I went to Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. In this Palestinian city, on the common border with Egypt, nearly one million five hundred thousand people have fled the bombing and find themselves trapped. If the possibility of a truce is mentioned here and there, the bombs, dropped daily in the area, added to the lack of access to humanitarian aid, plunge civilians into a situation of absolute destitution.

 

An ongoing humanitarian tragedy  

The population of Rafah is now six-fold. Tents are set up on every street corner. In the city, collective shelters overflow. There is not a square meter, a sidewalk, a balcony or a schoolyard that is not also occupied by displaced families, refugees wherever the place is available. In every look, the weight of the suffering endured is easily discernible. Everyone is exhausted, desperate, traumatized. They need everything: food, water, shelter, while humanitarian aid trucks are blocked at the border so close. The tension is palpable in this city where there is an atmosphere of chaos.

There is no safe place, and humanitarian aid is dribbling down. Air drops or the shipping corridor is not enough. The blockages in the delivery of humanitarian aid right across the border are unacceptable and must be lifted.

The pattern of damage caused by the violence of explosive weapons

Although I have been involved in emergency action for a long time, I am shaken by what I have seen. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and bombs have been raining continuously for 5 months. When explosive weapons are used in populated areas, 90% of the victims are civilians: the population is killed, mutilated, traumatized. Critical infrastructure, such as hospitals or schools, is being destroyed, which is already having a lasting impact, as these services are now unavailable and will remain unavailable for a long time. Even after the end of the fighting, shelling and shelling will leave areas heavily contaminated with explosive remnants, posing a serious long-term threat. Long and complex clearance operations will be necessary to allow any reconstruction. The consequences of the use of explosive devices are still visible in many countries around the world. For example, almost 30 years after the end of the conflict in Bosnia, the country is still contaminated by mines and explosive remnants of war. 50 years after the end of the Vietnam War, mine clearance operations are still underway in Cambodia and Laos.

What we are seeing in Gaza corresponds to the usual pattern of devastation caused by urban bombing, a pattern that Handicap International (HI) has observed and documented for years: massive population displacements, destruction of critical civilian infrastructure and housing, neutralization of agricultural land and livelihoods, and of course the dead and injured.

Here, the consequences are unparalleled. The humanitarian impact of the last five months is unprecedented, as the bombardments, very intense, rain without stopping on a strip of 40 km long, populated by nearly 2 million inhabitants.

International Humanitarian Law as the only compass

If this pattern of damage is sadly predictable, a new extreme has been reached in Gaza. Five months after the October 7 attack by Hamas, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 240 people taken hostage, the death toll in the Gaza Strip is 30,000 and nearly 70,000 wounded. Half of the buildings in Gaza’s five provinces are destroyed or damaged, after 45,000 bombs were dropped until mid-January. The entire territory is made extremely dangerous by constant bombing and attacks and contamination by explosive remnants of war. Cities are in ruins and 1.7 million people are displaced.

HI has long been committed to protecting civilians from explosive weapons, whether they be mines, cluster munitions or urban bombings. The association calls for a stop to the bombing in Gaza, the indiscriminate effect of explosive weapons being systematic on civilians when they are used in populated areas. These devastating effects were recognized by 84 states that adopted, in November 2022, a Political Declaration against bombing in populated areas. This declaration is part of International Humanitarian Law. It is consistent with HI’s support for the call for a ceasefire and the release of all the hostages and people held illegally. Only a ceasefire can meet the immensity and urgency of the needs with quick and unhindered access across the entire Gaza Strip.

 

Jean-Pierre Delomier

Deputy Director of Operations for Handicap International