As aid groups prepare for the return of hundreds of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, they are confronted with the daunting challenge of supporting communities returning to a devastated landscape, where homes have been reduced to rubble and essential infrastructure lies in ruins.
Many returning Palestinians will find their neighbourhoods unrecognisable, with widespread destruction leaving them without shelter, clean water, and basic necessities.
Humanitarian organisations are mobilising efforts to provide emergency aid, including temporary housing, medical support, and food supplies, as they anticipate an overwhelming demand for assistance in the coming weeks.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) told The New Arab that it was prepared to ramp up its humanitarian supplies and emergency medical support in Gaza "as soon as access improves".
"In the north, we are currently distributing water to internally displaced people as they are returning," Fikr Shalltoot, MAP's Gaza Director, told The New Arab.
"We are also assessing the needs on the ground as people return, to see what is needed," adding that MAP will be providing tent shelters for families through its partner, the Social Development Forum.
"We plan to relocate some of our medical points back up to the north in the next two weeks."
The aid group also expects many of its staff to return home and said it would support them as they do.
"We will try to give them the time and space to address the huge and devastating disruption to their lives," Shalltoot said.
"We have also identified staff who will continue to keep our vital programme work going through this period."
The director highlights that over 90 percent of Gazan homes have been damaged and destroyed, with neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.
"Palestinian lives continue to be critically endangered by illness, disease, starvation, and a lack of access to adequate healthcare following the systematic dismantling of Gaza's health system by the Israeli military," Shalltoot told The New Arab.
"The very fabric of people's lives has been decimated. Nothing is as it was before."
The director says while the temporary ceasefire may allow some internally displaced people to return to their homes, the Israeli military's widespread destruction means many may have nothing to return to, underscoring the need to rebuild the enclave.
"All forcibly displaced people must be allowed to immediately return to and rebuild their homes and essential infrastructure and have access to the resources to do so," Shalltoot says, adding that Israel's war means it will take years to recover and rebuild Gaza.
"While we hope this temporary ceasefire will save Palestinian lives and alleviate some of the suffering the Israeli military has inflicted, it marks the beginning, not the end, of efforts to restore health, dignity and freedom to the Palestinian people."
Following the ceasefire, humanitarian aid has poured into Gaza, something the Israeli army was restricting during its war.