Rasha Abousalem was in Egypt working to get aid trucks into Gaza earlier this year when she received word of a ceasefire and the reopening of the Rafah border for aid entry (Getty Images).
The fragile Gaza ceasefire has been tremendously welcome news to Palestinians suffering through 15 months of unceasing violence. Many humanitarian aid workers such as myself, however, are proceeding with caution, recognizing the reality in Gaza remains grim.
Current conditions on the ground suggest a much starker existence, as Israeli forces are quite likely to resume their assault, while in the meantime they have turned their aggressions towards the West Bank.
Starting in October 2023, Israel has unleashed its fury onto the Palestinians with unrelenting violence – snipers killing children, carpet bombing entire civilian areas, destroying hospitals and schools, kidnapping aid and medical workers and largely depriving an entire population of food and water.
For months, the population has depended on large caravans of aid trucks carrying desperately needed essentials, including food boxes, medical kits, canvas tents, blankets and hygiene items.
While pre-Oct. 7 Gaza saw an average of 500 humanitarian aid trucks entering the blockaded region daily, this number has dramatically plummeted over the past year due to Israeli restrictions of border crossings and item entry.
Since the Rafah border in Gaza was invaded by the Israeli military in May 2024, the border it shares with Egypt has been inaccessible, leaving thousands of pounds of humanitarian aid sitting in warehouses throughout Egypt. This closure has had a detrimental impact on the Palestinians of the besieged region, in what has been described as one of the worst man-made humanitarian crises in modern history.
Add to that plummeting winter temperatures, which in the first three weeks of January led to the deaths of eight newborn babies from hypothermia due to a lack of proper shelter.
I have traveled to Egypt four times since December 2023 to work on getting aid trucks into Gaza, as well as cover surgical costs for injured Palestinians from the ravaged region who were allowed to receive treatments in hospitals around Cairo.
During my most recent trip earlier this year, we received word of a ceasefire and the reopening of the Rafah border for aid entry. As past experiences have unfortunately taught us, there is never a true guarantee of time, as violence could resume at any given moment and the borders can immediately close once again.
So, we had to act fast and prepare the trucks to depart within two days.
Since I was already on the ground in Cairo, my partner and I were quick to get to the warehouse, assuring our access to properly organize before the slew of organizations began to arrive to do the same. But unlike my previous visits to the warehouse over the past year, which was always bustling with the noise of trucks loading pallets of aid, this time it felt as if I was entering a ghost own.
The warehouse felt frozen in time, with lonely pallets that had become dust-covered over the months of storage — remnants of a past “ceasefire” that proved as fleeting as a cool wind on a hot Cairo day.
Although the protracted occupation, which was rampant with deceit and inhumanity, led to sugar-coated cynicism during such “agreements” (at least for me it did), we knew, as aid workers, we had to take full and immediate advantage of this moment.
The borders will not stay open forever, and we have brief window of time to act. As I was walking around the warehouse assessing the current state of previously procured aid from many months earlier (aid that was supposed to be released in June until Rafah was invaded and the border closed), my phone began to receive message after message from people celebrating this ceasefire. It was hard for me to hide my skepticism, as anyone who is truly familiar with the region understands that Israel, as the occupying power and militarily superior actor, has a history of violating ceasefires.
Still, it would be incredibly unfair and deluded of me not to breathe a sigh of relief that the savagery was stopped, even if for a brief moment.
Meanwhile, while distracted eyes (and cameras) are set on the release of hostages and aid trucks rolling through the dusty streets of a demolished Gaza, Israel has ramped up its violent control of the West Bank as it invades numerous villages, killing and kidnapping civilians as it sets its sights on a new military campaign of ethnic cleansing in the often over-looked region.
At times I wonder when aid organizations will have to redirect their efforts towards the Palestinians of the West Bank, and how will we ever be able to meet the demands of such a cataclysmic humanitarian disaster. Just as frustrating to think about is how much of what the civilians in Gaza have been forced to endure by Israel could have been avoided over the past months if the Biden administration had not vetoed four UN ceasefire resolutions.
When will we allow ourselves to let go the notion that a pre-Oct. 7 Gaza, one that was under full siege from the Israelis, is a status quo we wish the Palestinians to return to?
Some of us refuse to be in the “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve” camp. So we push forward in every way possible to stand in solidarity for justice and humanity.