Since the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip came into effect on October 10th, displaced people in the southern city of Khan Younis and surrounding areas have returned home one after another. According to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health obtained by Al Jazeera, more than 435,000 people who had previously taken refuge in southern refugee camps have turned north and returned to their original places of residence.
When they returned to their original hometown, they saw razed blocks, twisted reinforced concrete, and unexploded ordnance everywhere.
A Palestinian man, Ayman Qaddula, was a member of the crowd who returned to his hometown, when he returned to Khan Unis's home, found a device filled with explosives hidden in his neighbor's house, a three-metre-deep bombardment pit exploded between his home and his neighbor's house by F-16 fighter aircraft missiles, two other missiles directly hit the back yard of the house, the house was severely damaged.
As a large area of Gaza is still under the occupation of the Israeli army, Kadura, who has nowhere to live, has to take his family and set up a tent for temporary shelter on a giant military equipment locally called an "explosive robot."
This remote-controlled “explosive robot” loaded with explosives is Israeli military equipment deployed in Gaza and used to destroy a whole neighborhood, whose unexploded state poses a serious threat to the surrounding population.
The Gazan media office revealed in early September that in the last three weeks of August, Israel detonated more than 100 robots loaded with such explosives in the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Kadula told the peninsula television station: "This type of non-explosive device is extremely dangerous, and if there is a flammable liquid nearby, it can trigger a huge fire, the consequences are unthinkable."
He was always worried that the detonation of the device would destroy the entire neighborhood, so he had to regularly cover the equipment with sand to reduce the risk.
Nowhere to go desperation.
Satellite analysis data from the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) shows that more than 42,000 buildings in Khan Younis province were damaged in the conflict. Among them, the number of damaged buildings in Khan Younis, the second largest city in the Gaza Strip, is at least 19,000 buildings.
Looking at the entire Gaza Strip, the United Nations assessment results show that more than 227,000 houses have been damaged to varying degrees, and hundreds of thousands of people have become homeless due to the damage to their homes.
Luke David Owen, head of the United Nations Office of Operations on Occupied Land Mines in Palestine, said the threat of explosives across Gaza was “extremely high” and that the agency has identified at least 560 unexploded devices in the accessible areas, the actual number or far more.
The data show that 328 people have been killed since October 2023 due to non-exploding ammunition, and the United Nations believes the real number of casualties could be higher.
In addition to the threat of unexploded ordnance, returnees are also facing difficult living difficulties.
Kadura's children are currently wearing clothes he cleared from the ruins. These dirty clothes have caused them to develop severe skin infections and frequent symptoms such as rashes and abscesses.
“We have no choice but to stay here.Mawashi’s refugee camps in the south are crowded, and there is not even an inch of space to accommodate more people.”
He noted that the Palestinians who remain in the south “will insist until the housing issue is permanently resolved.”