JERUSALEM: The United Nations’ aid chief took stock of the monumental task of restoring basic necessities in the devastated Gaza Strip on Saturday, and Israel received the remains of another October 7 hostage as a ceasefire entered its second week.
In a short convoy of white UN jeeps, relief coordinator Tom Fletcher and his team wound their way through the twisted rubble of shattered homes to inspect a wastewater treatment plant in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City.
“I drove through here seven to eight months ago when most of these buildings were still standing and, to see the devastation, this is a vast part of the city, just a wasteland, and it’s absolutely devastating to see,” he said.
The densely packed cities of the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million Palestinians, have been reduced to ruins by two years of bombardment and intense fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army.
Just over a week since US President Donald Trump helped broker a truce, the main border crossing to Egypt has yet to be reopened, but hundreds of trucks roll in daily via Israeli checkpoints and aid is being distributed.
Hamas has returned the final 20 surviving hostages it was holding and has begun to hand over the remains of another 28 who died.
On Friday night, it turned over a set of remains identified by Israel as Eliyahu Margalit, 75, who died in the October 2023 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
Digging latrines
Surveying the damaged pumping equipment and a grim lake of sewage at the Sheikh Radwan wastewater plant, Fletcher said the task ahead for the UN and aid agencies was a “massive, massive job.”
The British diplomat said he had met residents returning to destroyed homes trying to dig latrines in the ruins.
“They’re telling me most of all they want dignity,” he said. “We’ve got to get the power back on so we can start to get the sanitation system back in place.
“We have a massive 60 day plan now to surge in food, get a million meals out there a day, start to rebuild the health sector, bring in tents for the winter, get hundreds of thousands of kids back into school.”
According to figures supplied to mediators by the Israeli military’s civil affairs agency and released by the UN humanitarian office, on Thursday some 950 trucks carrying aid and commercial supplies crossed into Gaza from Israel.
Relief agencies have called for the Rafah border crossing from Egypt to be reopened to speed the flow of food, fuel and medicines, and Turkiye has a team of rescue specialists waiting at the border to help find bodies in the rubble.
Hostage remains
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the ceasefire but is under pressure at home to restrict access to Gaza until the remaining bodies of the hostages taken during Hamas’s brutal attacks have been returned.
On Saturday, his office confirmed that the latest body, returned by Hamas via the Red Cross on Friday night, had been identified as Margalit, the elderly farmer who was known to his friends at the Nir Oz kibbutz as “Churchill.”
“He was a cowboy at heart, and for many years managed the cattle branch and the horse stables of Nir Oz,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a support group founded by relatives of the hostages.
“He was connected to the ‘Riders of the South’ group whose members shared a love of horseback riding for over 50 years. On October 7, he went out to feed his beloved horses and was kidnapped from the stable.”
Margalit had been married with three children and three grandchildren. His daughter Nili Margalit, also taken hostage, was freed during the war’s first brief truce in November 2023.
In a statement confirming he had been identified and his remains returned to his family, Netanyahu’s office said “we will not compromise ... and will spare no effort until we return all of the fallen abductees, down to the last one.”
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said on Friday that the group “continues to uphold its commitment to the ceasefire agreement... and it will continue working to complete the full prisoner exchange process.”
Under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, negotiated by Trump and regional mediators, the Palestinian militant group has returned all 20 surviving hostages and the remains of 10 out of 28 deceased ones.
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UN aid chief foresees ‘massive job’ ahead on tour of ruined Gaza
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UN aid chief foresees ‘massive job’ ahead on tour of ruined Gaza
- UN relief coordinator Tom Fletcher: Gaza residents are ‘telling me most of all they want dignity’
Palestinian coach gets hope, advice from mum in Gaza tent
DOHA: Coach Ehab Abu Jazar is guiding a national team that carries on its shoulders all the hopes and sorrows of Palestinian football, but it is his mother, forced by war to live in a Gaza tent, who is his main inspiration and motivation.
The war that broke out following Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 put an end to Palestinian league matches, and left athletes in exile fearing for their loved ones in Gaza.
But Abu Jazar’s mother refuses to let the conflict overshadow the sporting dreams of her son, to whom she feeds tactical advice from the rubble of the Palestinian territory by phone.
“She talks to me about nothing but the team. She wants the focus to remain solely on the tournament,” the 45-year-old manager told AFP.
“My mother asks me about the players, who will play as starters and who will be absent, about the tactics, the morale of the players and the circumstances surrounding them.”
The manager, himself a former left-back, says he wants his players to convey the spirit of his mother and Gazans like her.
“We always say that we are a small Palestinian family representing the larger family,” he said.
“Undoubtedly, it puts pressure on us, but it’s positive pressure.”
The Palestinian team are 96th in the FIFA rankings, and their hope of playing in their first World Cup vanished this summer.
But the squad, most of whom have never set foot in Gaza, is within reach of the Arab Cup quarter-finals, keeping their message of resilience alive.
Palestine play Syria in their final Arab Cup group match Sunday, where a draw would be enough to achieve an unprecedented feat for the team.
He said progress would show the world that the Palestinians, if given the right conditions, can “excel in all fields.”
- ‘Genes of resilience’ -
Abu Jazar finished his playing career in 2017 before managing the Palestinian U-23 team and eventually taking the top job last year.
After the war broke out, his family home was destroyed, displacing his mother in Gaza, like most of the territory’s population during the height of the conflict.
He now feels pressure to deliver for them after witnessing from exile the horrors of the war, which came to a halt in October thanks to a fragile US-backed ceasefire.
“At one point, it was a burden, especially at the beginning of the war,” he said.
“We couldn’t comprehend what was happening. But we possess the genes of resilience.
“If we surrender and give in to these matters, we as a people will vanish.”
In her maternal advisory role, Abu Jazar’s mum, who goes by the traditional nickname Umm Ehab, is only contactable when she has power and signal.
But she works around the clock to find a way to watch the team’s matches from Al-Mawasi camp.
“My mother and siblings... struggle greatly to watch our matches on television. They think about how to manage the generator and buy fuel to run it and connect it to the TV,” he said.
This determination is pushing him to give Gazans any respite from the reality of war.
“This is what keeps us standing, and gives us the motivation to bring joy to our people,” he said.
“All these circumstances push us to fight on the field until the last breath.”
The war that broke out following Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 put an end to Palestinian league matches, and left athletes in exile fearing for their loved ones in Gaza.
But Abu Jazar’s mother refuses to let the conflict overshadow the sporting dreams of her son, to whom she feeds tactical advice from the rubble of the Palestinian territory by phone.
“She talks to me about nothing but the team. She wants the focus to remain solely on the tournament,” the 45-year-old manager told AFP.
“My mother asks me about the players, who will play as starters and who will be absent, about the tactics, the morale of the players and the circumstances surrounding them.”
The manager, himself a former left-back, says he wants his players to convey the spirit of his mother and Gazans like her.
“We always say that we are a small Palestinian family representing the larger family,” he said.
“Undoubtedly, it puts pressure on us, but it’s positive pressure.”
The Palestinian team are 96th in the FIFA rankings, and their hope of playing in their first World Cup vanished this summer.
But the squad, most of whom have never set foot in Gaza, is within reach of the Arab Cup quarter-finals, keeping their message of resilience alive.
Palestine play Syria in their final Arab Cup group match Sunday, where a draw would be enough to achieve an unprecedented feat for the team.
He said progress would show the world that the Palestinians, if given the right conditions, can “excel in all fields.”
- ‘Genes of resilience’ -
Abu Jazar finished his playing career in 2017 before managing the Palestinian U-23 team and eventually taking the top job last year.
After the war broke out, his family home was destroyed, displacing his mother in Gaza, like most of the territory’s population during the height of the conflict.
He now feels pressure to deliver for them after witnessing from exile the horrors of the war, which came to a halt in October thanks to a fragile US-backed ceasefire.
“At one point, it was a burden, especially at the beginning of the war,” he said.
“We couldn’t comprehend what was happening. But we possess the genes of resilience.
“If we surrender and give in to these matters, we as a people will vanish.”
In her maternal advisory role, Abu Jazar’s mum, who goes by the traditional nickname Umm Ehab, is only contactable when she has power and signal.
But she works around the clock to find a way to watch the team’s matches from Al-Mawasi camp.
“My mother and siblings... struggle greatly to watch our matches on television. They think about how to manage the generator and buy fuel to run it and connect it to the TV,” he said.
This determination is pushing him to give Gazans any respite from the reality of war.
“This is what keeps us standing, and gives us the motivation to bring joy to our people,” he said.
“All these circumstances push us to fight on the field until the last breath.”
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