All hands on deck

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Up next, rebuilding after ceasefire.

For the first time in over a year, Palestinians are returning to their homes in Gaza to learn what’s left of them.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: As part of the ceasefire agreement, aid is pouring into Gaza. And Israel has agreed to stop trying to destroy Hamas, though Hamas must not be part of any future government in the area.

What will it take for Gaza to rebuild, and who will do it? WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: On Sunday, Palestinians ran after hundreds of aid trucks as they crossed the border and started distributing food, medicine, and other supplies.

SEAN CARROLL: Most of that was backlog trucks that have been waiting and delayed for a long time.

Sean Carroll is the president and CEO of ANERA, American Near East Refugee Aid. They’ve had an office in Gaza for nearly 40 years, and Carroll visited last month.

CARROLL: It's kind of hard to fathom exactly how much work is-is needed.

The UN estimates as much as 90 percent of homes are rubble and that 60 percent of all the structures in the region are damaged or destroyed.

CARROLL: There's a need, first and foremost, for food.

Then medical care and shelter.

CARROLL: and taking care of orphans, there are an estimated somewhere around 20,000 orphans.

Carroll says there’s a lot of catching up to do. Before the war, several hundred trucks of aid crossed the border daily, but after October 7, that number fell to barely 50 trucks a day, many of them only half-full. And then once in, many of the trucks were looted before aid got to the people.

CARROLL: So it's going to take everyone.

But starting next week, they may not have everyone. Last fall, the Israeli Parliament passed a law banning one of the largest aid organizations to Gaza, and the grace period is coming to an end.

BOAZ BISMUTH: We have nothing against international community, against foreigners, against the idea of humanitarian aid.

After the laws passed, Knesset member Boaz Bismuth defended banning UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East.

BISMUTH: It's about the fact that UNRWA participated in the massacre of the 7th of October.

Earlier this year, the Israeli government announced investigations into over 100 UNRWA staff members. They accused those members of participating in the terrorist attack on October 7th.

They said UNRWA did not cooperate with them and never answered their requests for investigations.

BISMUTH: An organisation or an agency that calls itself humanitarian and participates in a massacre will not function in my country.

UNRWA says it took the accusations seriously and investigated them but didn’t find evidence of wrongdoing in most of the cases, and in the ten cases they did, they took action.

FOWLER: We do not know where we stand after the end of this month.

Jonathan Fowler is the spokesperson for UNRWA.

The law may be challenged by human rights agencies before it’s implemented or it could be implemented in a way that doesn’t completely disrupt UNRWA’s work but it’s likely that starting Tuesday, UNRWA will stop operating.

JONATHAN FOWLER: We face potentially massive risks to our work.

UNRWA was set up in 1949 to support Palestinians, and the UN has renewed it every three years since. Right now, the UN officially views what it calls Palestine as an occupied territory, which means it believes Israel should fulfill its duty as an occupier, namely to maintain law and order and uphold public life.

Right now, Fowler believes UNRWA is doing that job for them.

FOWLER: If we're not here, then it falls upon the Israeli authorities.

UNWRA’s charter says they are to provide things like education, job training, and basic health care.

FOWLER: We provide services directly in the absence of a functioning state.

Carroll with ANERA said working in Gaza would be much harder without UNRWA, but not everyone agrees.

MOON: There's a lot of us that are very happy to see this go.

Luke Moon is the executive director of the Philos Project.

MOON: Palestinians need to be treated like every other refugee in the world.

Moon says UNRWA has perpetuated Palestinian’s refugee status instead of allowing them to be taken in by another country or be repatriated.

MOON: The whole point of that special status was to delegitimize Israel and not allow Israel to be free from the obligation to take these people back.

Moon agrees with the Israeli government, which says there are enough neutral aid organizations to fill the gap.

On the other hand, Carroll with ANERA worries that the hole UNRWA would leave would be too hard to fill.

CARROLL: It's not clear who can take up that work, because the only way to really take up the work is is to take over all of the staff and the facilities.

Israel has not announced any specific plans to fill any holes UNRWA might leave. Though the Israeli organization in charge of tracking aid has publicized Israeli aid deliveries in the region on social media.

Carroll says that if UNRWA is banned, ANERA will continue doing its work, though some aspects may be harder.

CARROLL: So it's not looking good right now, but I think if we, each of us, look into our own humanity and urge everyone to do the same, then we can get there.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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