An Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal expected to take effect today has sparked hope for life-saving aid to reach Palestinians, but aid agencies warn of obstacles from destroyed infrastructure, massive need and collapsed law and order.
Announcing the truce, US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said it would “surge much needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians.”
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher called it “a moment of hope and opportunity,” but said that “we should be under no illusions how tough it will still be to get support to survivors.”
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On the ground in the territory, where nearly all 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, aid workers worry nothing would be enough to meet the need.
“Everything has been destroyed. Children are on the streets. You can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) coordinator Amande Bazerolle said.
Speaking from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Mohammed al-Khatib of Medical Aid for Palestinians said local aid workers have not stopped for 15 months even though they themselves are displaced.
“Everyone is exhausted,” he said.
In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect from winter rains and biting winds, Gavin Kelleher of the Norwegian Refugee Council said.
Even if the bombs stop, agencies like his have to focus on the basics of emergency response, including bringing in “tarpaulins, rope and fixtures to close gaping holes” in buildings.
“At least until we stop seeing children dying of hypothermia,” he said via text message from Gaza.
By last week, hypothermia had killed at least eight people — four newborns, three infants and one adult — according to a Palestinian health ministry toll used by the WHO.
On Wednesday, Egypt’s state-linked al-Qahera News reported coordination was underway to reopen the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border.
It was one of the main humanitarian entry points, but has been closed since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in May last year.
The truce is based on a plan Biden presented last year that foresaw a surge in aid to 600 trucks per day, or more than eight times last month’s average reported by the UN.
The World Food Programme on Thursday said it had enough food for 1 million people “waiting outside Gaza or on its way.”
On the Egyptian side of the border, a source in the Egyptian Red Crescent said that up to 1,000 trucks are waiting “for their entry into Gaza.”
However, with air strikes continuing to pound the territory, where aid groups and the UN have regularly accused Israel of impeding aid flows — which Israeli denies — aid workers were skeptical.
The promise of hundreds of trucks a day “is not even feasible technically,” Bazerolle said.
“Since Rafah has been destroyed, the infrastructure is not there to be able to cope with that level of logistics,” she said, with bombs audible in the background.
Aid that does arrive is subject to looting by armed gangs and desperate civilians.
“The Israelis have targeted the police, so there’s no one to protect the shipments” from looting, which Bazerolle said would continue “as long as there’s not enough aid entering.”
After more than a year of the “systematic dismantling of the rule of law” in Gaza, Kelleher called for “the resumption of a Palestinian civilian police force.”
The situation is especially dire in northern Gaza.
Bazerolle, who says MSF missions in the area have been targeted by Israel, said the group hopes to send teams to the north “to at least treat patients where they are,” in the absence of hospitals.
Only one hospital, al-Awda, is partially functioning in the north, according to the WHO.
WHO Representative Rik Peeperkorn said that, in addition to hospital capacity, his agency would focus on “the very basic things” including water, electricity and waste management systems in Gaza.
Still, the displaced would hope to head back — including Khatib himself — if the truce holds.
Many, he said, “will return to find their entire neighborhoods destroyed” and without food or shelter.
“People aren’t even talking about rebuilding their houses, but just the most basic essential needs,” he said.
“We’re closing one chapter of suffering and opening a new one,” he said. “At least there is some hope of the bloodshed ending.”
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