CHICAGO – The fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has led world leaders to increasingly call for rebuilding the now-flattened Gaza Strip – but reconstruction feels like a distant idea to humanitarians that are still trying to urgently alleviate suffering despite facing funding cuts and limited access into the enclave.

Since the agreement brokered by the United States went into effect earlier this month, the United Nations and international aid groups have tried to surge relief operations in Gaza to reach wounded, displaced Palestinians. But a campaign like that is a massive undertaking when public trust and funding have tanked in recent years.

“Total humanitarian funding has declined every year since 2022. This year we’ve only had 50% of what we received last year, and we’re already towards the end of October,” Richard Brennan, former regional emergency director for the World Health Organization, said Saturday at a conference in Chicago held by humanitarian group MedGlobal.

“We can’t lose sight of what that means to people,” he continued, citing a Lancet study that estimated about 40 million people would be dead by 2030 due to the decline in humanitarian systems.

The U.S. has been a major player in slowing down humanitarian responses, with the Biden and Trump administrations withholding funding to the one UN agency (UNRWA) that has existing infrastructure in place to meet the scale of aid distribution that Gaza requires.

Israel has long accused UNRWA specifically of supporting Hamas, leading many nations to pause funding to the agency and threatening Palestinians’ access to basic needs. Despite the claim being unsubstantiated, Israel effectively banned UNRWA from operating in Gaza, accusing Hamas of stealing the aid from civilians.

Every country but the U.S. resumed their funding to UNRWA when Israel was unable to back up its claim with evidence. But Israeli officials continued blocking aid from entering the enclave.

The International Court of Justice’s most recent advisory opinion ordered Israel to grant immediate access into Gaza for groups like UNRWA, saying the “occupying power may never invoke reasons of security to justify the general suspension of all humanitarian activities in occupied territory.”

In July, the Trump administration shut down the independent U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – canceling most of the federal agency’s aid programs while transferring the remaining ones to the State Department. Humanitarian experts have long warned that shutting down USAID would lead to conflict zones seeing an increase in preventable deaths.

“The political obstacles are the barrier to addressing the humanitarian needs in Gaza right now,” said Refugees International chief Jeremy Konyndyk, who worked for USAID under the Biden administration. “The backsliding on some core humanitarian principles and on adherence to international humanitarian law is going to haunt governments around the world and humanitarian agencies for decades to come.”

Brennan concurred, adding that the Trump administration’s decision to amplify a false narrative about USAID workers has made it difficult to articulate to the public just how dangerous things can become if humanitarian groups don’t have the support to create and maintain aid infrastructures.

“We’ve tried, but we’re getting drowned out. We’re getting drowned out by people within the current administration saying we’re criminal, we’re incompetent, we’re lazy and we’re immoral,” Brennan said.

The U.S. “is going to be aligning their humanitarian assistance much more with national political interests,” he continued. “So much for soft power.”