The UN official says that rebuilding Gaza will take “a lot of time”.

The process of rebuilding the devastated Palestinian territory “will take an enormous amount of time” despite promises of an increase in humanitarian shipments, a UN official in Gaza has warned.

“We’re not just talking about food, healthcare, buildings, roads, infrastructure. We have to rebuild people, families, communities,” Sam Rose, acting director of the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Gaza told the BBC.

A ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect on Sunday. at least 1,545 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza, the UN reports.

Trucks brought food, tents, blankets, mattresses and clothes for months of winter stuck outside Gaza.

The cease-fire agreement calls for 600 aid trucks, including 50 carrying fuel, to enter Gaza daily during the six-week first phase, during which Hamas would have to release 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

“We’re expecting a big increase in the volume of aid coming in, and of course it’s much easier for us to collect that aid when a lot of the problems we’ve had so far in the war are when the fighting goes away,” Mr. Rose said.

“We are no longer moving through an active conflict zone. We no longer have to coordinate all these movements with the Israeli authorities,” he added. “And today we haven’t had … much of a problem with looting and criminality.”

But he also stressed that “we must move away from thinking about the needs of the people of Gaza in terms of the volume of aid”.

“Everyone in Gaza has been traumatized by what happened. Everyone has lost something. Most of these houses have now been destroyed, most of the roads have been destroyed,” he added. “It will be a long, long process of rehabilitation and reconstruction.”

The World Health Organization’s regional director, Hanan Balkhy, meanwhile, said he had a 60-day plan to restore Gaza’s health system, respond to the urgent needs of the population 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 others only partially functional -, establishing temporary clinics in the hardest-hit areas, tackling malnutrition and controlling disease outbreaks.

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

UN officials blamed the humanitarian crisis on Israel’s curtailment of military aid, hostilities and a breakdown in law and order.

Israel insists there is no limit to the amount of aid that can be delivered in and through Gaza, and blames UN agencies for not distributing supplies. He also accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

The Israeli army 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 hostages taken. Israel says 91 of the hostages remain captive.

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 people have also been displaced multiple times, an estimated 60% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, health, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter. . .

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

The following month, an IPC committee warned that famine was likely to “remain” in parts 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 army launched a ground offensive in October aimed at preventing a resurgence of Hamas.

A Palestinian woman who returned to her destroyed home in Gaza after the ceasefire came into force on Monday expressed her shock at what she found after the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.

“The whole place seemed to have been hit by an earthquake due to the severity of the attack,” Manal Abu al-Dragham told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Today programme.

“I’ll set up my shop in the north whatever it costs, I don’t want to move from my land again.”

Mr. Rose said Unrwa groups from southern Gaza, where he is based, had not yet been able to cross into northern Gaza because the Israeli army had not yet opened Netzarim through the east-west corridor.

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

However, UNRWA faces Israeli sanctions which may make it impossible to operate in Gaza.

Two laws passed by the Israeli parliament that will come into force next week will ban the agency from operating in Israeli territory and prevent Israeli state agencies from communicating with it.

Israel has accused Unrwa of being an accomplice of Hamas, saying 18 of its employees took part in the October 7 attack. The agency has fired nine employees in the wake of a possible involvement in a United Nations investigation, and has insisted it is committed to neutrality.

The UN has said UNRWA is irreplaceable in Gaza, and the agency’s chief commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, has said thousands of Palestinian workers in Gaza will “stay and be handed over” if the Israeli government abides by both laws, although “it would have contact”. great personal risk” to them.