Occupied Palestinian Territory

About

UNMAS has been supporting mine action activities throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) since 2009. However, since the escalation of hostilities on 7 October 2023, UNMAS operations have evolved to adapt to the emerging needs of local
communities and humanitarian partners in both Gaza and the West Bank.

After two years of intensive fighting, with explosive weapons used by all parties to the conflict, explosive ordnance contamination in Gaza is significant. The contamination directly endangers communities and obstructs essential support to the Strip’s 2.1 million residents by restricting lifesaving humanitarian response, impeding early recovery efforts, and making essential rebuilding incredibly hazardous. Since October 2023, mine action partners have encountered almost 700 dangerous items of explosive ordnance during humanitarian missions and assessments, although actual contamination levels are expected to be much higher. UNMAS has also received reports of 470 victims of explosive ordnance, although again this figure is likely much higher due to underreporting.

In the West Bank, the increase in violence is putting communities at increased risk of explosive ordnance contamination. With explosive weapons being used throughout the territory, including in densely populated refugee camps and in cities, communities have to live alongside these dangerous threats until the items can be cleared. More than 2,380 items of explosive ordnance were reported by the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mine Action Center (PMAC) and the PA Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Police just in 2025, with the highest number of items reported in Hebron, Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem governorates.

UNMAS coordinates the mine action response in Gaza, and directly delivers humanitarian mine action activities throughout the OPT to mitigate the impact of these risks in Gaza and the West Bank. Response includes assessments, guidance and training to enable partners to deliver humanitarian response, delivery of Explosive Ordnance Risk Education to communities, and capacity enhancement activities in support of the PMAC in the West Bank.

Impact

Since October 2023, UNMAS OPT has delivered the following impact:

• Enabled 4 mine action partners with EOD capacity enabled to operate in Gaza
• Supported 33 humanitarian partners to deliver aid in Gaza
• Completed 769 explosive hazard assessments of humanitarian sites in Gaza
• Enabled 854 humanitarian missions in Gaza
• Reached 530,466 conflict-affected people in Gaza in in-person Explosive Ordnance Risk Education sessions

Activities

In Gaza UNMAS OPT coordinates and delivers the mine action response, mitigating explosive hazards for communities and enabling humanitarian organizations to reach people in need. In the West Bank, UNMAS OPT supports local authorities to ensure a coordinated response to the growing explosive threat. Activities are centred around four pillars of work:

Coordination

In 2024 UNMAS was designated by the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator as the lead humanitarian coordinating body for mine action response in Gaza. As the designated coordinating body for mine action in Gaza, UNMAS supports partners to ensure that response is delivered where there is most need.

UNMAS processes and prioritizes requests for support and tasks partners through dedicated online platforms, develops standards and technical guidelines, and provides operational support and training to partners. This ensures that the sector’s response to explosive threats in Gaza is consistent, impactful and tailored to the need.

For many partners, operating in Gaza is extremely challenging due to access issues, security risks and high costs. However, the need for mine action capacity is immense. Over the past two years, UNMAS has developed innovative responses to bring partners into Gaza, such as allowing partners to provide In Kind EOD Officers to the programme, operating under UNMAS brand umbrella and security systems. Since the October 2025 ceasefire, UNMAS has supported partners to deploy EOD Officers into Gaza independently through the provision of logistical support and technical training.

Explosive Hazard Response

As many other organizations cannot deploy EOD Officers into Gaza, UNMAS has deployed its own Officers into Gaza since October 2023. These Officers conduct assessments of humanitarian sites and along routes, checking for explosive threats and advising humanitarian partners and community members to ensure they can navigate these sites and routes safely. This work takes two forms:

• Through explosive hazard assessments, UNMAS enables humanitarian partners to more safely access or rehabilitate critical humanitarian infrastructure such as hospitals, shelters, schools or WASH facilities. A significant proportion of this work is assessing piles of debris to see if it is safe to be removed. This helps open humanitarian access and enables the debris to be processed and used for other construction and winterization efforts such as the construction of flood barriers.
• Through support to interagency missions, UNMAS accompanies humanitarian convoys to respond to community needs and deliver aid such as food parcels, basic supplies, shelter services and fuel to conflict-affected people and communities. UNMAS sits at the front of the convoy - or walks ahead of the vehicles - ensuring that there are no dangerous items along the road that could detonate when the convoy passes.

Whenever UNMAS encounters explosive ordnance during these missions, EOD Officers cordon off the area and write warning signs so that people know not to approach. This ensures that, even when explosive ordnance is present, people know how to navigate the threat.

Explosive Ordnance Risk Education

Working through local partners, UNMAS delivers risk education sessions to ensure that men, women and children know how to navigate explosive threats in the OPT. These include ‘formal sessions’, held in accessible locations such as shelters or medical facilities, and ‘street sessions’ where Risk Education Facilitators approach people in the streets and deliver short briefings about explosive threats and how to mitigate them.

By sharing information through a wide range of sources, more people receive lifesaving knowledge. UNMAS also delivers mass information campaigns, through radio spots, leaflets and posters, murals, and social media campaigns, reiterating safety messages so that they become second knowledge for conflict-affected people.

Capacity Enhancement

In the West Bank, UNMAS serves as an advisory partner to local authorities, particularly the PMAC and PA EOD Police. UNMAS provides support to the coordination of the mine action response in the West Bank, led by the PMAC, through technical advice, training, and information management support. UNMAS is prepared to respond to capacity enhancement needs in Gaza when a new local authority is established.

Funding

The generous support from donors enabled UNMAS to remain present in Gaza throughout the conflict and pre-position itself for an expanded response when the October 2025 ceasefire began. UNMAS thanks the following donors for their generous contributions and pledges to the OPT programme in 2025: Canada, Denmark, the European Union, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the UN Development Programme, the World Food Programme, and the Central Emergency Response Fund.

To sustain the mine action response in the OPT throughout 2026, UNMAS is requesting an additional 9.2 million USD to support coordination efforts, explosive hazard response, risk education delivery, and capacity enhancement support. To request additional information, contact the Chief of Mine Action programme in the OPT, Julius Vanderwalt, at: julius.vanderwalt1@un.org