Gaza’s children face a new killer beneath the rubble
Shafaq News
Weeks after the war subsided, Gazans hoped for a return to normalcy. Instead, they found themselves facing a quieter but deadlier threat: unexploded ordnance scattered across streets, alleys, and the ruins of homes.
These remnants of war now form a hidden battlefield, endangering civilians, especially children, who often mistake strange objects for toys or electronics.
One of the latest victims is Majd Abu al-Habib, 11, from eastern Khan Younis. His walk home from school turned into tragedy when a device resembling an air-conditioner remote detonated in his hand. Majd, unaware he was holding a cluster munition, suffered second and third-degree burns covering forty percent of his body. He now lies in Nasser Medical Complex under close observation.
His mother told Shafaq News she had stepped out briefly to buy his school supplies when she received a call saying an explosion near their home had severely injured her son.
The blast did not wound Majd alone – it upended the entire family’s life, plunging them into fear and uncertainty. His mother said Gaza is not experiencing a typical post-war period; hidden explosives buried under rubble or lodged inside destroyed structures continue to threaten anyone who approaches.
And for a population already devastated by an internationally designated genocide that killed more than 65,000 people, most of them women and children, these lingering explosives feel like a continuation of the same nightmare, of the war that never ends.
Read more: The War that Never Ends: A century in Palestine
Written and edited by Shafaq News staff.
