Sam Rose

When we tried to approach the house, three of us got out of the car on foot. And that's when settlers basically approached us. At first, one person was shouting. He started pushing and shoving, then throwing punches and then about 15 more Ja, genau. Er hat nichts getan, aber die Siedler sind dann zurückgekehrt. Wir haben sie gefragt, um die Siedler zu beheben, aber sie haben das nicht getan.

Danach sahen wir Hamdan und zwei andere Menschen, Nasser und Khaled, getötet. Wir sind dann in die Häuser gegangen und haben gelernt, dass sie in ihrem Haus getötet wurden. Ich habe einen Pool von Hamdans Blut vor seinem Haus gesehen.

For displaced Gazans returning to the north looking to rebuild their lives, the future is full of uncertainty. If their houses still stand, the chances are they'll be occupied by relatives, friends or even strangers. Those without homes will do what they've done for the past 15 months, live in tents or among the ruins. Aid agencies are bracing themselves for a series of monumental challenges.

Sam Rose works for UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees.

With the very fabric of life in Gaza turned upside down, schools, hospitals and other institutions reduced to rubble and entire neighbourhoods obliterated, it's hard to see how this tiny, overcrowded place can be rehabilitated any time soon. Donald Trump has suggested that Jordan and Egypt take in refugees, temporarily or permanently, an idea swiftly rejected by the two countries in question.

But even if Gaza is not reoccupied, as Israeli hardliners would like, what future does this ravaged strip of land have? If physical and political reconstruction don't begin soon, giving Gazans a glimpse of a better future, then some of those who can afford it will go, leaving the poorest and most vulnerable to fend for themselves in a blighted, ungovernable place.

Barely moments after the ink dried on President Trump's executive order, emails like these began flooding the inboxes of aid organizations, charity groups and government offices across the globe.

USAID has been instrumental in supporting Africa's largest slum, the Kibera community in Kenya. Initiatives have focused on improving health care, education and creating jobs to boost economic opportunities. But the recent funding cuts have left residents facing an uncertain future.

In 2023, the most recent year with complete official data, the United States provided Kenya with $850 million in aid. It's young girls in particular who are most affected, says Ali Elivald, who leads the Safe Water and AIDS Project in Western Kenya.

One recurring criticism is that the funding can sometimes create dependency among local agencies, leaving them struggling to sustain programmes when support is scaled back or withdrawn. I contacted key US government figures for their perspective on this issue. Some were unavailable and others didn't respond to my request for comment.

Even aid organisations that haven't directly received USAID funding are feeling the ripple effects of these cuts. And this highlights a broader challenge, balancing the push for independence with the reality of reduced resources. Dr. Sheila Davis, CEO of Partners in Health, highlights this struggle.

Her organisation currently operates 11 programmes across 10 countries, including Haiti, Peru, Rwanda, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Malawi. It received no more than 15% of its funding from USAID, but Dr. Davis says they're still feeling the impact of cuts.

When you look at the collapse of the system, Does it perhaps suggest that organisations and countries and governments were just too reliant on USAID?

But the way that this has been done, it's been too much of a shock. Yeah, I think the way it was done is immoral. Amidst the legal battles and policy debates surrounding USAID, one thing is clear. The ripple effects of these funding cuts affecting nearly all of their projects are being felt far and wide, challenging nations, organisations and individuals to adapt. That report by Sam Fenwick.

They were buried in shallow graves in a sand berm in the middle of the road, treated with complete indignity and what would appear to be an infringement of international humanitarian laws. Only if we have an investigation, a full and complete investigation, that we'll be able to get to the bottom of it.

The aid trucks started flowing at 11.15. So as soon as the ceasefire came into effect, those trucks started flowing. Trucks have been able to go backwards and forwards to the crossing points in southern Gaza today. So we're expecting a major uptick in the volume of aid that's come in.

And of course, it's far easier for us to go and collect that aid because many of the problems that we've faced so far in the war go away when the fighting stops. We're no longer moving through We no longer have to coordinate all these movements with the Israeli authorities because we're going through a conflict zone.

And we've not today, and it's too early to say whether this will hold, but we hope that it will, we've not faced any major problems yet. with looting and criminality. We've been able to go into the crossing relatively freely, and we've been able to go out, importantly, using the routes that we want to use to get the aid to our warehouses and out to people.

We've not yet been able to cross into northern Gaza. The aid reaching northern Gaza has come

in uh from the north and people themselves have not been able to get to northern gaza but we have capacity inside gaza as unruh we were running large-scale aid programs before the war we have the networks we have the community acceptance we have the people on the ground who can do this work in many ways the distribution of supplies supplies that have been outside Gaza for several months.

This is the easy bit. We've got to move away from thinking about people's needs in Gaza as a function of the volume of aid, the number of aid trucks that get in. Real rebuilding process here will take an awful lot of time. We're not just talking about food, health care. buildings, roads, infrastructure. We've got individuals, families, communities that need to be rebuilt.

The trauma that they've gone through, the suffering, the loss, the grief, the humiliation and the cruelty that they've endured over the past 16 months. This is going to be a very, very long road. Every person in Gaza has been traumatized by what's gone on. Everyone has lost something. Most of those homes are now destroyed. Most of the roads are and now destroyed.

It's going to be a long, long process of rehabilitation and rebuilding, but we absolutely have to make it work.