A man walks past rubble and damaged buildings along a street in the Tuffah district east of Gaza City on 8 July 2024. Photo: OMAR AL-QATTAA / AFP
As many displaced Palestinian children return home to a war-damaged Gaza following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a UN agency is ramping up aid efforts to support them.
The ceasefire was announced on 15 January, with the agreement including hostage and prisoner swaps, access for aid, and the return of Palestinians to their neighbourhoods.
But for many, they are heading back to only rubble, with the conflict evident as they try to resume normal lives.
UNICEF is at the centre of efforts to aid Palestinian children in Gaza, especially those unaccompanied or separated from their families, which organisation communications manager Tess Ingram said it estimates to be around 19,000.
"Before the ceasefire, a lot of those children had been separated from their families," she told Checkpoint.
"We're hopeful now that with the ceasefire, many of those families can be reunited, but of course, our other fear is that as people move... that children become separated in that movement again."
Ingram said identification bracelets are being handed out to help reunite child with their parents.
After the ceasefire, Ingram travelled back to Gaza with many returning Palestinians and said it was remarkable to hear of their hopes and resilience on the journey.
"But then when you get here and see the scale of destruction, unfortunately for many people, that hope is not the reality," she said.
UNICEF's priorities with the children are ensuring they have their basic needs, such as food, water, medicine and shelter, Ingram said.
She said the convoy they were on yesterday brought in six trucks of fuel "which is the lifeblood of humanitarian services".
There is also help needed for children who have been deprived of other essential services - immunisation, malnutrition treatments, mental health psychosocial support, she said.
Ingram said before the ceasefire, they were only averaging 50 trucks a day of aid, but have since reached 600, which she said it hopes to sustain.
Around 85 percent of school buildings in the Gaza Strip are damaged, or worse - completely destroyed, she said.
"Going back to a physical classroom is a long way away unfortunately for many of the children in Gaza."
But she said that temporary learning spaces are operating so that even though the children are not in the classroom, they are learning, and they are desperate to scale that up after the ceasefire.
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