Over the past two days, five children were injured after handling unexploded ordnance (UXO) which detonated on them, raising to 21 (including 13 children) the number of UXO victims injured, in nine incidents of this type, since the start of the current year.
According to the information available to Al Mezan, at around 9:00 pm on Sunday 8 July 2012, Hashim ‘Abdullah Hashim Jamus (a minor, 15 years old) suffered injuries in various parts of his body while at his home, located in Block 2 of al-Burayj camp.
  Hashim was hammering a cylindrical object made of old, rusted iron when it began to smoke and then exploded, injuring the youth in his legs, head, and left hand.
  He was taken to Shuhada’ al-Aqsa Hospital in Dayr Al Balah for treatment and admitted to the surgery department.
  The victim’s brother Muhammad (12 years old) often gathers pieces of aluminum and copper from the street and sorts them in his home to sell later.
  He had come across the cylindrical object and brought it home, and asked his older brother Hashim to help him take it apart and fold the metal over on itself.
  The latter began striking the object with a hammer he had brought from his uncle’s house when it exploded.
  He is still in the hospital’s surgery department.
  The police have opened an investigation into the incident.
In a separate incident, four children were injured at approximately 10:00 am on Saturday 7 July 2012.
  The children, residents of the eastern part of Wadi As-Salqa village, southeast of Dayr Al Balah, came across an iron object in one of the fields surrounding their home.
  They began moving it towards their home, which lies about one kilometer from the border, and as they were handling the object it exploded, resulting in the injury of: Jihad Sulayman Salih Abu Muharib (seven years old), wounded in the left thigh; ‘Abdul Rahman Muhammad Sulayman Abu Muharib (seven years old), hit in the stomach by shrapnel; Sundus ‘Isam Muhammad Abu Muharib (two-and-a-half years old), wounded in the head by a piece of shrapnel; and Ibrahim Marwan Muhammad Abu Muharib (10 years old), who suffered shrapnel wounds in various parts of his body.
  All were moved to Shuhada’ Al Aqsa Hospital in Dayr Al Balah for treatment, where their injuries were described as light to moderate.
  The police have opened an investigation into the incident.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights expresses its profound regret that UXO left by the occupation or by local actors continues to claim victims, and its sharp concern that these incidents will be repeated.
  It demands that the government in Gaza adopt measures to ensure the non-recurrence of these incidents, including stepped-up awareness campaigns among local residents, especially in areas near the border and those which have seen Israeli incursions or armed confrontations.
  It also calls on popular and other local organizations to increase awareness campaigns concerning UXO cases, both those involving explosive materiel left by the occupation and that left by the Palestinian resistance, in order to prevent children from continuing to fall victim to UXO explosions.