28th August, 2014
Humanitarian groups have welcomed the signing of an indefinite ceasefire by the Israeli Government and Hamas.
The ceasefire, which was brokered by the Egyptian Government, was announced on Wednesday with hopes it will lead to a more durable peace.
The UN estimates 2,101 Palestinians and 67 Israelis were killed during the 50 day conflict while some 475,000 Palestinians were forced to seek refuge at UN facilities inside Gaza where key infrastructure – including the only power plant – were destroyed.
Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, says the ceasefire comes as a relief to the hundreds of thousands threatened by daily violence for the past seven weeks.
"Our hearts go out to the thousands of people who have lost family members, had their homes destroyed and are now in need of humanitarian assistance," he said.
He called on all parties to continue negotiations to bring about a "lasting and just peace".
World Vision is providing food, hygiene items and safe spaces for children to play and be supported and under a program being run for the past five years in Gaza has trained some 8,000 mother and community members in psychological first aid to provide support to their families in distress.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme has successfully been able to deliver food to feed around 150,000 people for five days via the newly reopened Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza – the first time in seven years the WFP has been able to take a humanitarian convoy over the crossing.
“The opening of the Rafah crossing for humanitarian aid provides a major opportunity to scale up aid delivery to Gaza and needs to be sustained,” said WFP country director Pablo Recalde.
Earlier, welcoming the ceasefire, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that after 50 days of "profound human suffering and devastating physical destruction, any violations of the ceasefire would be utterly irresponsible".
– DAVID ADAMS
