The vast amount of rubble including unexploded ordnance left by Israel's devastating offensive in the Gaza Strip could take about 14 years to remove, a United Nations official said yesterday.

Israel's military campaign against Gaza's ruling Palestinian group Hamas has reduced much of the narrow, coastal territory of 2.3 million people to a wasteland with most civilians homeless, hungry and at risk of disease.

Pehr Lodhammar, senior officer at the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), told a briefing in Geneva that the offensive had left an estimated 37 million tonnes of debris in the widely urbanised, densely populated territory.

He said that although it was impossible to determine the exact number of unexploded ordnance found in Gaza, it was projected that it could take 14 years under certain conditions to clear debris, including rubble from destroyed buildings.

"We know that typically there's a failure rate of at least 10 percent of land service ammunition that is being fired and fails to function," he said. "We're talking about 14 years of work with 100 trucks."

Meanwhile, a baby girl who was delivered from her dying mother's womb in a Gaza hospital following an Israeli airstrike has herself died after just a few days of life, the doctor who was caring for her said yesterday. The baby had been named Rouh, meaning Soul.

Her mother, Sabreen Al-Sakani, was seriously injured when the Israeli strike hit the family home in Rafah, the southernmost city in the besieged Gaza Strip, on Saturday night.

Her husband Shukri and their three-year-old daughter Malak were killed.

Sabreen, who was 30-weeks pregnant, was rushed to the Emirati hospital in Rafah. She died of her wounds but doctors were able to save the baby, delivering her by Caesarean section.

However, the baby suffered respiratory problems and a weak immune system, said Doctor Mohammad Salama, head of the emergency neo-natal unit at Emirati Hospital, who had been caring for Rouh.

She died on Thursday and her tiny body was buried in a sandy graveyard in Rafah. "I and other doctors tried to save her, but she died. For me personally, it was a very difficult and painful day," he told Reuters by phone.