Three months into the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the UN and partners have delivered tonnes of assistance items and carried out critical repairs, but this is only a temporary "Band-Aid" solution, a veteran aid worker has warned.
"The humanitarian situation and crisis in Gaza is far from being over," Olga Cherevko from the UN aid coordination office OCHA said in an update to journalists.
"For the Palestinians in Gaza, their lives continue to be defined by displacement, trauma, uncertainty, and deprivation," she said, speaking on Friday from Jerusalem.
Their plight has been further compounded by "severe recurrent storms that not only destroy people's meagre belongings, but they're also deadly - whether through crumbling buildings or by taking the lives of children who are highly susceptible to the cold".
Repairing roads, clearing rubble
Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, humanitarians have brought in over 165,000 metric tonnes of assistance into Gaza. They also repaired roads, rehabilitated hospitals, cleared rubble, and re-opened aid distribution points.
"We celebrated our gains and showed once again that when we're enabled to do so, we deliver," Ms. Cherevko said, adding that "the results speak for themselves."
During the first two months of the truce alone, over 1.3 million people received food packages, and over 1.5 million hot meals were prepared and delivered to people in need across Gaza, thus improving food security.
