UN Transcripts — https://transcripts.un.org/es/asset/k1s/k1srwr2ait Julius Van Der Walt (UNMAS) on the situation in the West Bank and Gaza as it concerns unexploded ordnance and access - Press Conference — 30 April 2026 Language: en Automatically generated transcript — may contain errors. Not an official United Nations record. --- Moderator [0:00]: Thank you very much. We're delighted to be joined by Julius Vandervelt, chief of the Mine Action Program in the occupied Palestinian Territory, confirming that you are speaking to us from Gaza. That is correct. So I will leave you to brief and then take some questions. UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [0:24]: Perfect. Thank you very much, Stefan. First and foremost, yes, it may not be jazz, but it was lovely. As I was listening, I had some chat. Children on the outside singing. I have to say, the sound of music remains beautiful, especially when it comes from children. So, as mentioned, good afternoon, colleagues. My name is Julius Van Valt. I'm the Chief of Mine Action Program, and I'm joining you right here from the United Nations Mine Action Services office here in Gaza in Therabada. So, just last week, Gaza's rapid damage and needs assessment, conducted by the eu, the UN and the World bank was released. There's three key figures to look at when, when assessing or when referencing the RDNA. First and foremost, of 2.1 million people, 1.9 million people have been displaced and roughly 60% of people are without homes. They say the human development impact has set back the population of Gaza roughly about 77 years. Anyone who has been in Gaza recently will likely be unsurprised by these figures. You know, and driving through Gaza, you can see the extent of the damage and the number of people living in temporary shelters. When you speak to communities, they tell you that they're absolutely tired of having to relocate so many times over the past two years. And explosive ordinance is only making this worse. Since October 2023 in Gaza, more than 1000 people, I think the latest figure is more than 1200 people, or on an average of one person every single day, have been killed or injured by explosive ordnance. So of all the accidents that we have been able to verify and get more information about, nearly half of those victims are children. And these are only the cases that we know about. We know that this is a severely underreported figure and a true toll is certainly almost far higher. Accordingly, you know, to a recent report by Safety Children, which I had an honor to also listen to the presentation when I was in Geneva last week, national directors meeting that was held there, more than 40,000 children were injured in 2023-2024, with thousands losing limbs in the very first weeks of escalation, leaving Gaza with the largest group of child amputees anywhere in the world, as well as the direct threat to people's lives and limbs. Of course, explosive or no contamination also hinders humanitarian response. It prevents the communities from, from Being able to go about their everyday lives and risk early recovery and reconstruction efforts. Humanitarian convoys risk det access routes while they try to reach communities in need of support. Families cannot safely return to their home places to begin rebuilding their lives without the risk of finding explosive ordnance amongst the rubble. And farmers cannot safely grow produce to feed their communities and restart their livelihoods. Although we have not yet been able to conduct a comprehensive survey or clearance efforts, evidence suggests a very high density of explosive ordnance contamination relative to Gaza's small geographic size. We have already identified nearly a thousand dangerous items during missions requested by unit and partners only that equates to encountering an explosive device every 600 meters in Gaza's small geographic size. And this means that no community, no child and no family can void the threat. What we are doing, we are delivering a comprehensive and coordinated mine action response which is ultimately the key to unlocking all these initiatives. We are working within our sector, which is the mine action sector, to deliver and to enable humanitarian delivery by conducting explosive hazard assessments of both aid sites and routes. We are accompanying missions to ensure humanitarian convoys can move safely. We are raising awareness amongst communities and humanitarian staff through risk education so people know how to protect themselves. Last week, after the building collapsed onto a key access route here in Gaza, blocking community and humanitarian access, we worked closely with the World Food Program to clear the debris safely and to reopen access along that specific route. A few months ago, we also accompanied World Health Organization to a hospital where we had previously identified explosive ordinance, guiding the teams along the safest routes so that they could retrieve life saving medical equipment for use also in other hospitals. Recently we have also been working closely with Oxfam. We started an initiative to make land safe for farmers to produce fresh fruit and vegetables for displaced communities. That's limiting the dependence on external supplies by considering explosive ordinance threats throughout all these activities, whether it's health activity, shelter activities that was mentioned earlier, as well as early recovery and so forth. You know, we are definitely making it safer and more effective and enabling those activities, but our response remains constrained. At this point in time. We have several factors as being affected. Of all entities are there all humanitarian partners, including security conditions, access restrictions and a lack of our own technical equipment that prevents us from scaling up and doing the full scope of action activities. We have the expertise, we've got the trained personnel and we are ready to expand mine action activities within Gaza. What we need now is the space and the support to act. The more comprehensively we can respond to explosive ordnance now, the less of a threat these Orders will pose in the future. The explosive threat is of course, not only limited to Gaza. So over the last two years, we have also seen an increase in explosive ordnance contamination in the West Bank. With explosive weapons being used throughout the territory, including densely populated refugee camps and in cities, communities have to live alongside these dangerous threats until the items can be clear. While partners work tirelessly to deliver life saving, risk, education, messaging, promoting safe behaviors, access restrictions continue to hinder these efforts. We continue to work very closely with partners in the west bank to support the coordinated mine action response, delivering training and advice and raising awareness, particularly among at risk communities such as the Bedouin and IDP communities. Explosive ordinance contamination in Gaza and the west bank is a daily emergency. It kills, it maims and it denominates community. The chance to rebuild unless is enabling humanitarian delivery and raising awareness to save lives. But unless mine action activities are expanded, the risks will ultimately remain and recovery will remain impossible. Clearing these threats is the first step on the long road to peace and recovery. Thank you very much. Moderator [6:42]: Thank you very much, Julissa. We'll go to Edie later. Associated Press · United Nations Correspondence Association · Correspondent · Edith Ledera [6:46]: Thank you very much. On behalf of the United Nations Correspondence Association, My name is Edith Ledera from the Associated Press. A couple of follow ups. Who's responsible for most of this unexploded ordinance and why can't you get the demining equipment that you need into Gaza? And finally, how many teams, excuse me, how many demining teams are actually able to operate in the territory? Thank you. Moderator [7:36]: Thank you. Julius, go ahead. UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [7:41]: Thank you very much. I appreciate that, Ida. It's really nice meeting you virtually. So I'll start with the very first question, which is who's responsible from the explosive ordinance, the most of explosive ordinance? Always clear, we are finding explosive ordnance from different countries being manufactured that was used within the strip. And ultimately, from our perspective, we see that all of these present exactly the same risk to the populations which we are serving. We've seen conventional ammunition, we've seen improvised ammunition, we've seen initially being manufactured, as I said, by different countries. So it's, you know, it is sometimes that we find the condition of these ammunition is severely deteriorated. So we cannot always track it back to exactly who has manufactured it. But onto your next question, which I think is the more important question. It links very closely to the earlier question regarding shelter materials and more permanent or semi permanent shelter, is that our equipment can ultimately deem, you know, some of the most dual use equipment, you know, because all the equipment that we use essentially comes from a, from a military background. The Detectors that we use, the equipment that we use to undertake demolitions. And I think the, the stores that we ultimately need, which is the explosives material, you know, those are deemed to be, I think, the most dual use item because you can use it like we use it in most of the countries across the world, across our 19 programs that Ummas is running, you know, for very good purposes, or we can use it for extremely bad purposes. So, you know, our equipment are undergoing also additional scrutiny by bringing that. But we continue to advocate, we continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders, including the Israeli authorities, to identify mechanisms in which we could potentially bring this equipment team. And then lastly, on the mine action teams, it's all about, you know, the scope of our operations. What we've said lately is like, we are undertaking currently our operations are purely focused and the capacity is purely focused on, on supporting humanitarian activities. We do not yet have the capacity to start supporting the civilians itself. So our approach is basically to enable the humanitarian activities to, to reach the broadest, I said, beneficiary base that we could potentially do. We currently have about 28 DoD personnel that is working on action within the Gaza Strip, which we are supporting and which we are tasking. Some of those are our own personnel, some of those are our implementing partner personnel. But we are looking at scaling up when the conditions of course, allow and we can start addressing the threats. Thank you. Moderator [10:05]: Thank you, Yvonne. RTE News · Correspondent · Yvonne Murray [10:09]: Thank you very much. Yvonne Murray, RTE News. Firstly, quick follow up on Edie's question there. You responded to say that the ordinance you're finding emanates from a variety of different countries, but could you please tell us which countries you're seeing the ordinance coming from? I know that you can't give more details about manufacturing, but I would like to know which countries, please. And secondly, you said that you're ready to go, but you need the space and the support to act. Can you tell us who you are directing that message at, please? UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [10:49]: Thank you. Moderator [10:50]: Thank you, Julius. UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [10:55]: Thank you very much. On the first one, on which manufacturer, again, as I said, I think all the other parties to the conflict, they're the ones that use it. And the concept of that nation supporting those specific countries are the ones that we see manufacturing from. I think it's. No, I mean, we've seen, we've got, of course, weapons from the us, which has been widely reported, got the weapons that was manufactured from Iran, of course, that was supporting our colleagues on the other side, but not our colleagues, Apologies, our parties on the other side. So it's a variety of countries you know, and it's also been historic, historic ammunition that has been in the Gaza Strip for a long time. Again, it's very difficult to say, you know, the full range of how many countries and different countries have supported these or have directly supported or not directly. Again, the ammunition that we are finding maybe originate from different contexts. So maybe something that has been transferred from another conflict and has been provided by a member state, or not a member state, a manufacturing state that actually produced it. So in that regard, you know, I would refrain from answering exactly which countries have produced those specific ammunitions. On the next one, what we are ready for and how we are ready to act is, yes, we do. Our message is basically at the entire international community as well as the authorities, the local authorities that we have, the Palestinian Authority, the NCAC that we have engaged with previously under the resolution. We're waiting for phase two to start, and they're essentially coming into the Gaza Strip. So we are aiming this message to everybody that essentially has the ability to unlock the sector for us to have a coordination mechanism so that we can start some of the most basic buying action activities that we are doing in other contexts. This means that, you know, when we talk, for instance, about the removal of scrap metal, you know, which is something that we are still limited and able to do, that means that something that resembles an explosive ordinance, but does it doesn't contain explosive risk. You know, we said that we can remove those type of things. When we are talking about a removal of scrap metal, of safe to move items, those are items that we can remove also without special equipment. But of course, we need down the line a safe storage area where we can do that. And the final how are we going to dispose of it? So we cannot just collect these items with having a disposal process in place. So I'm talking. So the message is aimed at anybody from international entities, the member states, anybody on an advocacy level to help us advocate for the importance of addressing the explosive ordinance risk appropriately. Moderator [13:27]: Thank you, Ephraim. And then Abdul Hamid. Okay, Abdul Hamid, thank you so much, Al Quds al Arabi · Correspondent · Abdul Hamid Sayyam [13:34]: Julius, for your briefing. Abdul Hamid Sayyam from the Arabic daily Al Qudsel Arabi. Could you give us more details about your active teams in the West Bank? Which part of the west bank are those refugee camps which has been displaced and destroyed by Israel? Are you active there or where exactly in the West Bank? And second, about Gaza. How do you tell us about the international presence in Gaza? Which UN agencies are they are active on ground and particularly I want to know about more honor. And last thing If I may, how do those people go, as you just said, children playing music and how do they go with their lives if there is lack of food, lack of medicine, lack of water, lack of fuel, lack of attention from the world. They have been ignored since the, what cold. The biggest lie in history that there is a ceasefire in Gaza. And also now there's a new threat. I read about it, about these kind of mosquitoes and maybe scorpions and snakes are now spreading in Gaza. If you can shed any light on that. Thank you. UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [14:57]: Thank you very much. On the first one on the West Bank. So how we operate, must we have a occupied Palestinian territory program, which means that we are operating both in the west bank and in Gaza? The important thing is, is that it's two different approaches. What we are doing here and what we are doing up in the west bank in Gaza, we essentially, as unmas, are the provider of last resort means that we are here coordinating mine action activities, making sure it runs, because there is no authority to coordinate these activities efficiently and effectively. Up in the west bank, of course, the Palestinian Authority is intact. They do have a Palestinian Mine Action center who is responsible for coordinating all the mine action activities that's ongoing in that specific area. And they also working very closely with the Palestinian EOD police in the west bank, who is the entity that actually go out and go respond to these specific incidences or reports of explosive ordnance as they come through. What we are doing in the west bank is in support of the Palestinian Mine Action center, you know, making sure that authorities know how a Mine Action center, based on our experience from other contexts, should operate. You know, we are working in terms of developing an information management database that helps them, that we're national partners, a lot of INGO, sorry, national NGOs working in the west bank, where they essentially deliver explosive ordinance risk education, the forms that they would fill in to come to a centralized database. So we are developing the, the Palestinian Mine Action center to develop that database to receive that information and then also how to analyze that in determining where the violence is, where the conflict is, and where to prioritize additional responses when they actually do the tasking. Further than that, we have also helped them in developing an EOA strategy, making sure that the explosive ordinance risk education materials are appropriate for the emerging threat that is happening in that. So we in the west bank are pretty much standing behind and helping the authorities, you know, deal with some of these problems and respond appropriately. So our implementation, we do not do self implementation in west bank, we support the implementation in west bank in those things. We do have an implementing partner up there, national NGO that we are also using to support the Palestinian Mine Action center in delivering explosive ordnance risk education at risk areas. On your next question on the international presence in Gaza, we have several different forums here. We've got the United nations country team. We also have the humanitarian coordination team or the humanitarian country team. And then we also have the heads of agencies which is here in Gaza, Gaza focused. We have a great deal of UN participation in Gaza responding to the different sectors. And of course, those entities also, you know, can speak for themselves in exactly what they are doing in the specific sectors that they are addressing UNRA activities. I think Steph will be better placed to comment on that. And Steph, if you don't mind coming in on that one after my next one and how children go about. And I think that is one of the questions that, you know, we normally what I say to people is like people even last week in Geneva asked me like, how do you remain positive in the current environment? And you know, I think it's the challenges are many and let's not start, you know, listing the challenges. As you already pointed out, there's a lot of challenges. I think the people here in Gaza, you know, that we encounter, have the world to restart their life. They have the world to restart. So the children, in light of these circumstances, in light of these challenges, you know, choose to try to be happy to sing. You see little coffee shops opening when you drive through the streets. You see little businesses here and they're trying to restart, you know, some commercial or economic activity. So we do see life, you know, even while we are advocating for early recovery to start, while we are advocating for all of these type of initiatives and how can I say the big donations to come in to help support the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip, you know, people are finding their way. They're not sitting, you know, idly and waiting for support. They are definitely trying to make the best of the situation, which is absolutely unbearable for them. Cover. Moderator [19:07]: Thank you. And as you know, Abdul Hamid, they're continuing their work under difficult circumstances, both physical and financial. Journalist · Stefano [19:16]: Stefano, thank you very much for this briefing. You probably know what happened last night, that there was this flotilla that was stopped by the Israeli forces International water. I wonder is there is any echo of these events in Gaza? I mean, does the civilian population is, you know, has a kind of is waiting for this flotilla, was waiting think that what they doing is a good thing, they really need what they transport or because Israel is being accusing these Ships to be just a PR stunt. I would like to know what you know about what is the mood of the people, Palestinian people in Gaza about those effort. UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [20:12]: Thank you very much. Again, I cannot, I cannot comment on behalf of the entire population. I do know that the Palestinian people living in Gaza are very good at manage their expectations. I think they can see the broader challenges around humanitarian aid, especially from the UN coming in. There is still a lot of confidence in the UN's ability to try to unlock some of these initiatives, trying to unlock the humanitarian access and bringing it in. But in terms of the expectation of the flotilla, unfortunately, I cannot comment on that. Moderator [20:41]: Adla. The National · Correspondent · Adla Masood [20:49]: Hi, Adla Masood with the National. Should you get the support and the space you've asked for, how many days, months or years would it take to clear Gaza of these unexploited ordinances? UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [21:04]: Thank you very much. So that is a very interesting question. I think we need to first look at what is the risk of explosive ordnance. The first and foremost, I have to say that we have not located any minefields or cluster munition strike sites which would normally in other contexts, suggest area contamination. All the items that we've encountered have been a single items of UXO or abandoned ammunition, maybe a collapsed building where there was ammunition that was stored there. So what we are finding is essentially we call it spot task. It means it's a specific side that's got an item that needs to be dealt with. The problem with this threat, it's almost similar to what you can see now where you have buildings being built in the UK and even all the way from, from World War II, when they start digging, they find an explosive ordinance in the ground. I think the important thing is, is that we need to be realistic. We're not going to clear the Gaza Strip. As the international community, you know, when it comes to the threat, there's a lot of what we have seen and all the items, more than a thousand, that we have identified so far, have all been on top of the surface. Surface, you know, so under the rubble will be a different picture. We will find a lot of things under the rubble. That means that over the longer term, you know, when there is a new governance structure that is in place here in Gaza, you know, the development of a national capacity to sustainably deal with this threat over the long term or even over the decades to come and to be able to respond when there is a item that is being encountered, I think that will be the solution. So giving people the tools and the skills to deal with it themselves will be the long term goal within the Gaza context. It won't be something that we will clear systematically throughout the Gaza Strip. Moderator [22:40]: Thank you, Ephraim. And then I think we'll close it out. Just a quick one. How many, all in all are you in Gaza as a group? How many D minors are there and how was the visa process? Was it easy to get a visa and enter Gaza? Thanks. UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [22:57]: Thank you very much. As I mentioned earlier, we are about 28 or we are 28 EOD officers. That means it's all internationals at this point in time that is able to go out and undertake these explosive hazard assessments as well as support the interagency missions. For most of these, these demi of not EOD operators. For most of them, they rotate in on the humanitarian rotation coming from Amman directly into the Gaza Strip through the alembic crossing. So it is a process that does not require an Israeli visa and is being supported by the basically the convoy that comes from the border to the Kerem Shalom entry point. So it is a visa free process and the process is being facilitated by the Israeli authorities essentially over. Moderator [23:45]: Julius, thank you very, very much. We wish you and all your colleagues all the best and good luck and thank you for all the work you're doing and we hope to see you back here soon. Thank you. UNMAS · Chief · Julius Van Valt [23:56]: Thank you very much. Thank you.