Jerusalem was rainy and chilly a few days back, an unpleasant reminder to Jason Knapp that winter is coming. Mr. Knapp, Catholic Relief Service’s country representative for Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, knows that increasingly cold and wet conditions for 2 million people in Gaza displaced by fighting will surely magnify the general misery. He knows that tents, tarps and bedding kits are in the pipeline. Will there be enough?
“We just need to be able to get these items in at scale,” he told America from Jerusalem on Oct. 4, “especially given the situation that we’re seeing in Gaza right now.”
The destruction of Gaza has been near complete, with almost 70 percent of its housing damaged or destroyed, its medical system in ruins and its water and sanitation infrastructure obliterated. Pooling lagoons of sewage are a menace, promoting skin diseases and opportunistic viral outbreaks like an unprecedented revival of polio.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are crowded into sprawling tent camps near the coast with no electricity, running water or toilets. Hunger is widespread. Even if a ceasefire is reached, the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza have no home to return to as winter closes in.
The internally displaced people at the camps are packed tightly together with little individual or family room, and few are able to shelter in anything more formidable than a tarp or tent. Few buildings remain standing.
Most families have been forced to move many times by Israeli Defense Forces evacuation orders and with each new displacement, families lose or abandon more belongings. Not many of them by now have clothing appropriate for worsening weather conditions.
Gaza is an enclave familiar with conflict and the collateral damage to lodging, infrastructure and human life that accompanies it, so C.R.S. and its team members were already prepping for a crisis by pre-staging humanitarian supplies and running emergency response drills before last October. But nothing could have prepared the staff for the last 12 months and the pounding of the strip by the Israel Defense Forces as it pursued Hamas militants and sought to recover Israeli hostages.
As conditions have worsened, Mr. Knapp says C.R.S. ratcheted up its emergency response, opening warehouses to deliver food, water, cash allowances and hygiene kits that in the end have reached more than 1.5 million people since the I.D.F. retaliation for the Hamas raid began on Oct. 8.
He is rightly proud of a staff that has performed this feat under life-threatening conditions and while enduring their own dislocation and disruption. “We’re so immensely proud about what we’ve accomplished,” Mr. Knapp said, “but we’re also so aware that so much more still needs to be done. And in a place like Gaza, it’s just this recurrent need over and over and over again—food supplies or hygiene items, the things that are consumable, of course, need to keep coming in on a very regular basis.” That became harder to do after the shutdown of the Rafah crossing near Egypt in a “final” I.D.F. offensive against Hamas that began in May, but C.R.S. has established alternative routes to get supplies in.
But even with the new access, he reports that last month, C.R.S. was only able to reach 30 percent of the people it has been trying to assist. He worries other humanitarian organizations are having the same access problems as the I.D.F. campaign against Hamas continues and world headlines move on to the expansion of the conflict to Lebanon and soon perhaps Iran. Aid groups worry that in Gaza, all the trends—on hunger, water, sanitation and containing disease—are heading in the wrong direction. Safe access for humanitarians and aid flows have to be improved in order to counter these concerning trends, Mr. Knapp said.
“It’s really important that the world remains aware that the conflict in Gaza hasn’t ended and the suffering of civilians there remains very severe,” he said. “The focus cannot shift away from Gaza because of how unique of a situation it is, despite the very important priorities of the protection of civilians in Lebanon and humanitarian assistance there as well.” He is reminded also that throughout the year-long drama in Gaza, the occupied West Bank has also endured disruption as conflict between Israelis and Palestinians escalated. He said significant military incursions have left thousands of homes and infrastructure damaged on the West Bank as well.
Gaza’s small Christian community, what is left of it, has sheltered since the beginning of the crisis at two church compounds near Gaza City.
“Anytime we’re able to get assistance into the north,” Mr. Knapp said, “we do make sure to take into account any of the needs at either of the church compounds and make sure that we’re supporting these families.” But conditions in the north make reaching the compounds no easy task. “It’s been immensely difficult for everyone in Gaza. It has been especially difficult in the north as there is often pretty active conflict …and continuing evacuation notices in different locations.”
This, in a section of north Gaza that the I.D.F. had first stormed months ago, has Mr. Knapp wondering how the conflict can be brought to an end. A year in, he asked, what is the way forward?
“What is the hope that a Christian in Gaza has for rebuilding his life and family and having a vision for the future?” he asked. “This is the call that we want to keep making to the world: We want a peaceful, hopeful vision moving forward and additional conflicts and additional destruction isn’t the answer, isn’t the solution.”
In advance of a ceasefire “which we all hope for,” Mr. Knapp reports that he and other humanitarian groups continue to implore the U.S. government to use its leverage with Israel. “We’re still pushing most hard for safe access,” he said, “for protection of humanitarians and protection of civilians in Gaza.”
With reporting from The Associated Press
The Weekly Dispatch takes a deep dive into breaking events and issues of significance around our world and our nation today, providing the background readers need to make better sense of the headlines speeding past us each week. For more news and analysis from around the world, visit Dispatches.
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