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

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 Israel’s military restrictions on aid deliveries, hostilities and the breakdown of law and order.

Israel insists there is no limit to the amount of aid it can send to Gaza and blames UN agencies for failing to distribute supplies. It also accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denied.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 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 region’s Hamas health ministry.

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

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 people were facing disaster levels, which could lead to starvation and death.

The following month, the IPC committee warned that there was a strong possibility 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 aid 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 a ceasefire was enforced expressed her shock at what she found after Israeli soldiers withdrew.

“The whole place looks as if it has been hit by an earthquake because of 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 the cost… I don’t want to be displaced from my land again.”