The United Nations has plans for a 60-day “massive surge in lifesaving aid” to reach hundreds of thousands of displaced and hungry people in Gaza. Some aid has been trickling in as the cease-fire negotiated by the Trump administration holds this week, but the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, where hundreds of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid are queued up, remains closed to traffic.

Speaking from Jerusalem on Oct. 16, Jason Knapp, the country representative for Catholic Relief Services in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, had just returned from a weeklong visit to assess conditions in Gaza. He said humanitarian agencies like C.R.S. are still negotiating how to begin working at a scale that approaches the need in devastated Gaza, where more than 1.9 million people have been displaced from their homes and are now living in rudimentary and often tattered tent shelters.

Mr. Knapp said replacing thousands of those decrepit tents will be a focus for C.R.S. as winter approaches in Gaza. Emergency shelters have not been allowed into Gaza since March, according to Mr. Knapp, and the temporary shelters that had made it inside during the fighting were never intended to last this long. Providing clean water while desalination plants and water pumping facilities are replaced or restored will also be a major priority.

The cease-fire has created a flicker of hope among the residents of Gaza, many of whom, he said, remain stunned that the end of the violence appears truly at hand this time.

“People are tired, and they really lived through hell for two years,” Mr. Knapp said. “Everybody has his or her own timeline to kind of process news and experience the grief and the anger and the frustration and the hopelessness of it,” he said, but an undeniable, if deeply cautious optimism about the future is palpable now.

Finally over?

It is difficult to discern the sincerity and intentions of both Israeli and Hamas leadership as the armed conflict appears to be coming to a conclusion after 24 months of violence. But Mr. Knapp said “the normal civilians” that he has spoken with “were pretty hopeful that at least the war as they knew it, that war is over now.”

“Everybody’s expecting some hiccups here and there, but the level of intense hostilities, as we saw it, is hopefully over.”

“It’s hard to have that hope,” he added, when it has “been dashed in the past.”

“It feels [to the people of Gaza] like a miracle,” Mr. Knapp said. “There is a lot of significance in that hope for peace and, all the more, for a just peace.” He urged people of faith in the United States to remain focused on that outcome even as the vast humanitarian relief and rebuilding effort begins in Gaza.

“It’s been so important to have the support of the Catholic community in the U.S.,” he said, “certainly from an advocacy perspective, but also [because] it enables our [response to] scale. 
It’s been really incredible to see the support from the people in the pews. I do feel deeply appreciative to the Catholic community in the U.S. for that.”

C.R.S. has a number of warehouses and distribution points already set up in the areas of Gaza where it has access, Mr. Knapp said. The U.S.-based relief and development agency has already been bringing in some aid from Jordan. Much more is needed. Rafah in the south and North Gaza remain closed off to humanitarian aid workers, and the situation on the ground remains dangerous.

C.R.S. team members in Gaza who have been working throughout the conflict come from the communities they work with, and “we’ve invested a lot of thinking in our safety and security analysis and protocols and what we can do to keep staff safe,” Mr. Knapp said. That analysis will evolve with changing governance conditions on the ground, “who’s controlling which areas of Gaza into the future,” he said.

“We’re going to need to keep a really close eye on it,” he said, adding that C.R.S. teams are at work in three Gaza governorates, Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis—where civilians have taken refuge.

The cease-fire has so far survived a few near-breakdowns after days of tension and sporadic flare-ups of violence during which each side accused the other of violating the terms of the agreement signed on Oct. 13 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. On Oct. 14, in two separate incidents, Israel Defense Forces gunned down seven people whom they alleged got too close to I.D.F. positions. Palestinian witnesses said the seven killed had been inspecting the damage to their homes.

The day before, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to once again halt humanitarian aid into Gaza because of alleged foot-dragging by Hamas in returning the remains of Israeli hostages who died in Gaza or who were killed during the Hamas murder raid that initiated this latest war two years ago.

The cease-fire plan introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump called for all hostages—living and dead—to be handed over by Oct 13. But, according to the deal, if that proved impossible, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.

Searching the Gaza rubble

While all 20 surviving hostages have been released, locating and returning many of the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages has proved difficult. Mr. Netanyahu said on Oct. 15 that Israel “will not compromise” and demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the cease-fire agreement about the return of hostages’ bodies.

Mr. Trump, in an interview with CNN, warned that Israel could resume the war if he feels Hamas is not upholding its end of the agreement.

“Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word,” Mr. Trump said.

Hamas’s armed wing said in a statement released on Oct. 15 that the group honored the cease-fire’s terms and handed over the remains of the hostages it had access to. Hamas has told mediators that some bodies are in areas controlled by Israeli troops.

Hamas and Red Cross officials have said that recovering the remains of the other Israeli hostages will be a challenge because of the vast destruction in Gaza. As much as 83 percent of structures across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed during two years of street combat, shelling and missile strikes.

Tom Fletcher, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, issued a statement from Cairo, Egypt, on Oct. 15. He described efforts to continue the cease-fire as “a moment of great but precarious hope.” According to Mr. Fletcher, real progress was made this week in getting much-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza; roads were cleared and bakeries reopened. “Food, medicine, fuel, water, cooking gas and tents” are getting “through to those who need them.”

He urged Hamas to make “strenuous efforts to return all the bodies of deceased hostages,” adding that he was also gravely concerned by the evidence of violence perpetrated by Hamas militants against civilians in Gaza as the cease-fire began.

He urged Israelis to allow “the massive surge of humanitarian aid—thousands of trucks a week—on which so many lives depend, and on which the world has insisted.”

“We need more crossings open and a genuine, practical, problem-solving approach to removing remaining obstacles,” he said. “Throughout this crisis, we have insisted that withholding aid from civilians is not a bargaining chip. Facilitation of aid is a legal obligation.”

“No one expected this to be straightforward, nor easy,” Mr. Fletcher said in his statement. “There will be more bumps in the road. We must restore trust and hope through action. It is essential that we do not squander the immense progress made.”

“The test of these agreements is that families are safe and reunited, children fed, sheltered and back in school, and that Palestinians and Israelis can look forward with greater security, justice and opportunity,” Mr. Fletcher said. “The world has failed so many times before—we must not fail this time.”

With reporting from The Associated Press

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Kevin Clarke is America’s chief correspondent and the author of Oscar Romero: Love Must Win Out (Liturgical Press).