UN warns on Gaza reconstruction work as aid increases with ceasefire deal

A UN official in Gaza has warned that the reconstruction process in the devastated Palestinian territory will “take a long time” despite promises to increase humanitarian supplies under a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

“We’re not just talking about food, health care, buildings, roads, infrastructure,” said Sam Rose, acting director of the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNARWA). “We have individuals, families, communities Which need to be rebuilt.” Gaza told the BBC.

More than 630 aid lorries entered Gaza after the ceasefire took effect on Sunday, with at least 300 headed for the north. Mr Rose said he expected the same number or more people to enter on Monday.

Lorries brought desperately needed food, tents, blankets, mattresses and clothing for the winter that had been stranded outside Gaza for months.

The ceasefire agreement reportedly requires 600 aid lorries, including 50 carrying fuel, to be delivered to Gaza every day during the six-week-long first phase, during which Hamas will exchange 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. should be released.

“We are expecting a large increase in the amount of aid coming, and of course it is much easier for us to collect that aid because many of the problems we have faced so far in the war have been overcome during the fighting. Stops,” Mr. Rose said.

“We are no longer moving through an active conflict zone. We no longer need to coordinate all these activities with the Israeli authorities,” he said. “And today we don’t face any major problems like…looting and criminality.”

But he also stressed that “we have to avoid thinking about the needs of the people in Gaza in terms of the amount of aid”.

“Everybody in Gaza is traumatized by what happened. Everyone has lost something. Most of their houses are now destroyed, most of the roads are now destroyed,” he said. “It’s going to be a long, long process of rehabilitation and rebuilding.”

Meanwhile, Hanan Balki, regional director of the World Health Organization, said a 60-day plan to reboot Gaza’s health system needs to be implemented to meet the immediate needs of the population and prioritize care for the thousands of people with life-changing injuries. There is a plan.

The plan includes repairing Gaza’s hospitals – half of which are out of service and others only partially functional – setting up temporary clinics in the hardest-hit areas, addressing malnutrition and controlling disease outbreaks.

On Sunday night, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned that the humanitarian needs of Palestinians in Gaza were “shocking”.

UN officials have previously blamed Israeli military restrictions on aid delivery, hostilities and the breakdown of law and order for the humanitarian crisis.

Israel has insisted that there is no limit to the amount of aid delivered into and across Gaza and has blamed UN agencies for failing to deliver supplies. It also accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, which left nearly 1,200 dead and 251 taken hostage. Israel says 91 of the hostages are still in captivity.

More than 47,000 people have been killed and 111,000 injured in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced multiple times, 60% of buildings are estimated to be damaged or destroyed, health care, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed, and food, fuel, medicine and shelter are in short supply. There is a serious shortage of.

In October, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) estimated that 1.84 million people across Gaza were experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, and 133,000 were facing catastrophic levels, leading to starvation and Death may occur.

The following month, an IPC committee warned that there was a strong possibility that famine was “imminent” in some areas of northern Gaza.

Ahead of the ceasefire, the United Nations said the besieged northern towns of Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun had been largely cut off from food aid since Israeli forces launched a ground offensive in October with the stated aim of preventing a Hamas resurgence. had started.

A Palestinian woman who returned to her destroyed home in northern Gaza on Monday after the ceasefire took effect expressed her surprise at what she found after Israeli troops withdrew.

“Because of the severity of the offensive, the whole place looked as if it had been hit by an earthquake,” Manal Abu al-Dragham told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme.

“I will pitch my tent in the North, no matter what it costs… I don’t want to be displaced from my land again.”

Mr Rose said Anarwa teams in southern Gaza, where he is based, have not yet been able to enter northern Gaza because the Israeli military has not yet opened routes through the east-west Netzarim corridor.

But he said that as the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza, Unrwa had networks and people on the ground who could help if they were given access.

However, Anarwa faces Israeli sanctions that may make it impossible to operate in Gaza.

Two laws passed by the Israeli parliament, which are set to take effect next week, would block the agency from operating within Israeli territory and block Israeli state agencies from communicating with it.

Israel has accused Unrwa of colluding with Hamas and says 18 of its employees took part in the October 7 attack. The agency has fired nine staffers whom the UN investigation found may have been involved and has insisted it is committed to neutrality.

The United Nations has said that Unrwa is irreplaceable in Gaza, while the agency’s Commissioner General, Philip Lazzarini, has declared that if the Israeli government implements the two laws, thousands of its Palestinian employees “will continue to live and work” in Gaza, despite That this “will come” is at considerable personal risk to them.