As Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip on Monday, aid workers on the ground began assessing the scale of the humanitarian crisis following Israel's 22-day assault on Hamas militants. Here are their impressions, as told to AlertNet in telephone interviews.
'Everything destroyed'
It's a catastrophe. They destroyed everything. Even our ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) hospital and buildings were damaged, and a lot of medical supplies destroyed. A huge number of families are without shelter. The U.N. is making shelters in schools. The Israeli helicopters also attacked a shelter for the homeless.
Khalid Jodi, head of the Palestinian Red Crescent
Hundreds if not thousands and thousands of houses are destroyed. Reports show in certain areas complete devastation, which will take months if not years to build up again. Of course, the main issue is the people, those who have been left disabled or worse by the war. There will be a huge job for all humanitarian agencies in rebuilding the infrastructure, the economy in Gaza, but itÂ?s really difficult to assess the scope of it at this point.
Ola Skuterud, ICRC spokesman
'The most important thing is silence'
The main issue is getting people food, drinking water and shelter. We...have an unknown number of people who are taking shelter from other host families. So now there are 20 or 30 extra people living in the houses. This is going to be one of the big challenges of the next phase of the aid effort, trying to find where people are and trying to get them aid as fast as possible.
I talked to a colleague this morning and he said right now the most important is the silence. The fact that he can sleep through the night. You have no idea what it feels like to check on your children in the middle of the night and not fear that they are in danger of being killed. Sleeping for eight hours without waking up - that for me, is enough today. I will think about food tomorrow.
Another colleague said the shops were open; some shops were able to bring food in.
So in some areas there is food available in the markets. The problem is that most people there are experiencing a cash shortage.
The Israeli govt has opened all the border crossings for medical evacuation only. But of course there is a huge demand, not just for aid, but for businesses to get their shops back and running. So we are waiting to get food and cash across to kick-start whatever is left of the Gaza economy.
We are hoping that this ceasefire turns into a more prominent truce because we have a society that has been basically destroyed. Houses destroyed, hospitals destroyed, water systems, electrical systems, businesses starting from scratch.
Last week, we were actually distributing fresh vegetables which we get from farmers there, but the problem was the farmersÂ? fields were being bombed or they were being swamped with sewage. So the farmers were not able to harvest the crops, which means CARE was not able to distribute the food.
Melanie Brooks, CARE International spokeswoman
Â?Traumatised children need specialist helpÂ?
What we are seeing now on the ground is a humanitarian crisis. Before this all started there were 50,000 children who were malnourished in Gaza, and you are looking at three-quarters of the population being dependent on food aid.
We needed at least 400 trucks a day to get through the borders, for everybody who needed food to get it. However, at the moment only a trickle of trucks are coming across, in some cases maybe nine only a day, in some cases about 30. I think the most that have come across is about 100.
There are multiple obstacles we are facing. ItÂ?s food, itÂ?s water, itÂ?s medical supplies, but also other items to do with children. They desperately need specialists who can go across the border and help children get over the trauma they might have experienced over the last three weeks. Education needs to be set up, which we feel is absolutely essential for children to feel they have a safe place to be in - an area that is protected, something they havenÂ?t felt at all since the 27th of December.
We need personnel in there: engineers to rebuild schools. It is an absolutely enormous task and is made very difficult by the fact that the borders are only allowing a small trickle of aid to get through.
Gaza is a very populated area - one of the most populated areas in the world - and youÂ?ve got 40,000 children under the age of six months in there. It's a huge task. It canÂ?t be stressed how this ceasefire has to be permanent and immediate.
If you go into a school, sometimes there are almost 2,000 people and they are sleeping on the floor. YouÂ?ve got a family of maybe 10 people and they are sharing one mattress and one blanket between them. One cleaner who cleans the toilet for all these people.
The family would share a can of tuna or corn between them. As for the children, they have nothing to do. They are not enjoying being children. They have no structure to their lives, and thatÂ?s why itÂ?s essential to get specialists in there who know how to deal with helping children to understand and move forward with their lives.
Kate Redman, Save the Children media manager
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