Gaza rebuild will take ‘a lot of time’, says UN official

The rebuilding process in the devastated Palestinian territory will “take an awful lot of time” despite the promised surge in humanitarian deliveries, a UN official in Gaza has warned.

“We’re not just talking about food, healthcare, buildings, roads, infrastructure. We’ve got individuals, families, communities that need to be rebuilt,” Sam Rose, acting director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in Gaza, told the BBC.

After a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas took effect on Sunday, at least 1,545 aid lorries have crossed into Gaza, the UN said.

The lorries brought in desperately needed food, tents, blankets, mattresses and clothes for the winter which had been stuck outside Gaza for months.

The ceasefire deal reportedly requires 600 aid lorries, including 50 carrying fuel, to be allowed into Gaza every day during the first phase lasting six weeks, during which Hamas should release 33 Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

“We’re expecting a major uptick in the volume of aid that’s coming in, and of course it’s far easier for us to go and collect that aid because many of the problems that we have faced so far in the war go away when the fighting stops,” Mr Rose said.

“We’re no longer moving through an active conflict zone. We no longer need have to co-ordinate all these movements with the Israeli authorities,” he added. “And we’ve not today… faced any major problems with looting and criminality.”

But he also stressed that “we have to get away from thinking of people’s needs in Gaza as a function of the volume of aid”.

“Every person in Gaza has been traumatised by what’s gone on. Everyone has lost something. Most of those homes are now destroyed, most of the roads are now destroyed,” he added. “It’s going to be a long, long process of rehabilitation and rebuilding.”

The World Health Organization’s regional director, Hanan Balkhy, meanwhile said it had a 60-day plan to get Gaza’s health system back on its feed to meet the population’s urgent needs and prioritize care for the thousands of people with life-changing injuries.

The plan includes repairing Gaza’s hospitals – half of which are out of service and the others are 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 “staggering”.

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

Israel has insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid that can be delivered into and across Gaza and blames UN agencies for failing to distribute 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, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. Israel says 91 of the hostages remain in captivity.

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

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has also been displaced multiple times, 60% of buildings are estimated to be damaged or destroyed, the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

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

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

Before the ceasefire, the UN said the besieged northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun had been largely cut off from food assistance since the Israeli military launched a ground offensive in October with the stated aim of preventing a Hamas resurgence.

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

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

“I will set up my tent in the north no matter what it costs… I do not want to be displaced from my land again.”

Mr Rose said Unrwa teams in southern Gaza, where he is based, had not yet been able to cross into northern Gaza because the Israeli military had not yet opened up routes through the east-west Netzarim corridor.

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

However, Unrwa is facing looming Israeli bans which could make it impossible to operate in Gaza.

Two laws passed by the Israeli parliament, which are due to take effect next week, will prohibit the agency from operating within Israeli territory and prevent Israeli state agencies from communicating with it.

Israel has accused Unrwa of being complicit with Hamas and said 18 of its staff took part in the 7 October attack. The agency has fired nine employees that a UN investigation found may have been involved and insisted that it is committed to neutrality.

The UN has said Unrwa is irreplaceable in Gaza while the agency’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, has declared that its thousands of Palestinian staff in Gaza will “stay and deliver” if the Israeli government enforces the two laws, even though it would “come at considerable personal risk” to them.