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| Some of the artillery shells his team collected on Thursday. Photo: Ruth Pollard |
Ruth Pollard
Middle East Correspondent
Nuseirat, Gaza: Hazem Abu Murad and his team have none of the equipment you would expect in a unit of munitions disposal experts.
Theirs is one of the most dangerous jobs in Gaza but they have no protective suits, no robots and no portable X-ray systems.
Instead, they assess the situation – a potential unexploded mortar, shell or missile – on sight alone and work out the safest way to disarm and dispose of it as far from civilians as possible.
As his team examines a large missile dropped from an Israeli F16 into a field where crops of potatoes and tomatoes usually grow, Mr Abu Murad of Gaza’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal Police admits there have been some frightening moments in his 15-year long career. "There is one minute between life and death," he says. "If I move my fingers two millimetres the wrong way, I am gone." After pronouncing the one-tonne bomb safe to move, a bulldozer is summoned to the site, and it rumbles slowly along a narrow, sandy track and into the field.
Under the watchful eye of the family who were forced to flee their home 10 days earlier when the missile landed, the dozer driver lowers its tray and scoops up the enormous missile along with a large pile of dirt and lifts it high up into the air. The bulldozer then trundles out of the residential farming district.
Following 29 days of Israeli aerial, naval and tank bombardment in which the Israel Defence Forces say they struck 4762 sites across Gaza, the risk to civilians, especially children, of unexploded munitions has skyrocketed, experts warn. Read More
Middle East Correspondent
Nuseirat, Gaza: Hazem Abu Murad and his team have none of the equipment you would expect in a unit of munitions disposal experts.
Theirs is one of the most dangerous jobs in Gaza but they have no protective suits, no robots and no portable X-ray systems.
Instead, they assess the situation – a potential unexploded mortar, shell or missile – on sight alone and work out the safest way to disarm and dispose of it as far from civilians as possible.
As his team examines a large missile dropped from an Israeli F16 into a field where crops of potatoes and tomatoes usually grow, Mr Abu Murad of Gaza’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal Police admits there have been some frightening moments in his 15-year long career. "There is one minute between life and death," he says. "If I move my fingers two millimetres the wrong way, I am gone." After pronouncing the one-tonne bomb safe to move, a bulldozer is summoned to the site, and it rumbles slowly along a narrow, sandy track and into the field.
Under the watchful eye of the family who were forced to flee their home 10 days earlier when the missile landed, the dozer driver lowers its tray and scoops up the enormous missile along with a large pile of dirt and lifts it high up into the air. The bulldozer then trundles out of the residential farming district.
Following 29 days of Israeli aerial, naval and tank bombardment in which the Israel Defence Forces say they struck 4762 sites across Gaza, the risk to civilians, especially children, of unexploded munitions has skyrocketed, experts warn. Read More
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