The territory
The West Bank and Gaza fell to British forces during World War I, becoming part of the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1967 Gaza and West Bank were captured by Israel in the Six-Day War. The Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) consists of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. The West Bank is a landlocked territory bordering Israel and Jordan, Gaza is a coastal area on the eastern Mediterranean Sea bordering Israel and Egypt. While the Palestinian Authority (PA) has administered most of Gaza and parts of the West Bank under its control since 1994, Palestine is generally not recognized as an independent state. As of 2024, the Occupied Palestinian Territory is home to an estimated population of some 5.5 million people, among them are 3.2 million people living in the West Bank and 2.3 million residing in Gaza. The OPT covers an area of 6,220 square kilometers.
The humanitarian situation
The overall humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is marked by a protracted political crisis characterized by 56 years of Israeli military occupation. The humanitarian crisis is aggravated by violence against civilians, lack of respect for international humanitarian and human rights law, internal Palestinian divisions and the recurrent escalation of hostilities between Israeli security forces and Palestinian armed groups.
In October 2023, the humanitarian situation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip drastically deteriorated following attacks by the Israeli military due to atrocities committed by Palestinian armed groups inside Israel. An unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza, where people are dying of starvation and famine is imminent. The increasing escalation of violence and the complete siege imposed on Gaza by the Israeli government has created a humanitarian disaster for the people of Gaza (See security situation for latest updates.). The humanitarian situation in the West Bank has also significantly worsened following the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
Millions of Palestinians struggle to meet their most basic needs and live in dignity. Some 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees reside in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Most registered Palestinian Refugees live in Jordan (2.3 million), Gaza (1.44 million), West Bank (997,000), Lebanon (532,000), and Syria (618,000). The Syrian conflict that began in 2011 had a devastating impact on the Palestine refugees in the country. Over 120,000 fled Syria, most of them to Lebanon.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency, providing health, education and other basic services to Palestinian Refugees. Established in 1949, the agency operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, as well as Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In the absence of a political solution for the Palestinian refugees, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA's mandate.
The UN agency provides primary health care for about 2 million Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. UNRWA runs more than 700 schools, providing an education to more than half a million children. Only one-third of the registered Palestine refugees still live in refugee camps. Two-thirds live in cities, towns and villages throughout the UN agency’s area of operations, and many have moved outside the area and are living in third countries.
About 2.7 million people, including the total population of Gaza, are experiencing severe food insecurity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The entire population of the Gaza Strip - more than 2.2 million people - ar at immediate risk of famine.
The United Nations estimates that 3.3 million Palestinians across the OPT need humanitarian assistance in 2024. Among them are more than 1.5 million children. The people in need represent 100 percent of the population - 2.3 million - in Gaza and about one million people living in the West Bank.
A Flash Appeal seeks $2.8 billion to allow UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to respond to the urgent needs of 3.1 million people in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The Flash Appeal covers a nine-month period, from April to December 2024, and targets 2.3 million people in Gaza - the entire population - as well as 800,000 people in the West Bank. covers a nine-month period, from April to December 2024.
Overall, US$4.1 billion is required to support the 3.3 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
The security situation
Under a series of agreements known as the Oslo Accords signed between 1993 and 1999, Israel transferred to the newly created Palestinian Authority security and civilian responsibility for many Palestinian-populated areas of the West Bank as well as Gaza. Since 1994 the Palestinian Authority has administered parts of the West Bank under its control, mainly the major Palestinian population centers and areas immediately surrounding them. Roughly 60 percent of the West Bank remains under full Israeli civil and military control, impeding movement of people and goods through the territory. Gaza has been under the de facto governing authority of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) since 2007.
The repeated upsurge of hostilities between Israel and armed Palestinian groups is dramatically worsening the situation for the people living in the OPT. The humanitarian conditions created by the political and security crisis continue to impact all parts of the territory, affecting nearly every aspect of Palestinian life. For five decades, Palestinians have struggled with the security and safety consequences of the occupation and political turmoil.
Despite its responsibilities as an occupying power and a party to the Geneva Conventions, the Israeli government continues to implement policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that violate the Geneva Conventions and exacerbate the humanitarian needs and protection risks of the Palestinian population. Such policies also threaten the ability of humanitarian organizations to respond effectively to the emergency.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), consistently high levels of the presence of Israeli Forces, including search-and-arrest operations during both the day and night, arrests, detentions, and ill-treatment of children continues. OCHA says a steep rise in conflict-related violence, including settler attacks, has further eroded public safety and security, increasing fear among the population in the OPT, particularly among children. Access to mental health and psychosocial services remains limited, as does access to critical health services, particularly in Gaza.
Before October 7, 2023, recurrent escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip resulted in deaths, injuries, psychological distress, the destruction of homes and buildings, and exacerbates Gaza's chronic deficits in housing, infrastructure, and energy. Israeli policies and practices aimed at accelerating the forcible transfer of Palestinians and annexation of territory were increasing.
The high level of demolitions and confiscations of Palestinian buildings continues to be an element of a coercive environment that leaves many Palestinians throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with no choice but to leave their homes and communities.
In October 2023, violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory escalated dramatically. On October 7, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, including fighters from the militant HAMAS group, launched thousands of rockets toward Israel and breached through a perimeter fence of Gaza at multiple locations. Members of armed groups entered into Israeli towns, communities, and military facilities near the Gaza Strip, killing and capturing Israeli forces and civilians.
More than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, most of them civilians, were reportedly killed and more than 5,400 injured, most of them on October 7. Some 240 people, including Israelis and foreign nationals, were held hostage in Gaza. More than 120 of the hostages have since been released, most of them during a weeklong truce agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Following the large-scale attack, the Israeli cabinet declared war and the military began indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in Gaza, killing more than 34,100 Palestinians - over 1.5 percent of Gaza's population - and wounding more than 77,000 others, many with life-changing injuries that will leave them permanently disabled, including more than 1,000 children who have lost one or more upper or lower limbs.
70 percent of the fatalities are reported to be children and women. The dead include more than 14,500 children and at least 9,500 women.
Among those killed are at least 249 aid workers, 181 UN staff, 490 health workers and 140 journalists. Over 9,000 people - including thousands of children - have been reported missing and are presumed dead. Overall, Israel's air and ground operations in the Gaza Strip have killed, wounded or left missing more than 120,000 people since October 7 last year, representing over 5 percent of Gaza's population.
Over 60 percent of all housing units in the Gaza Strip, a densely populated area, have been either destroyed or damaged since the start of the hostilities. This includes more than 70,000 housing units destroyed and more than 290,000 damaged. Entire residential neighborhoods have been razed to the ground. As of January 2024, over 60 percent of residential buildings and over 80 percent of commercial buildings were either destroyed or damaged, according to the World Bank.
The United Nations and humanitarian organizations have expressed deep concern for civilians in the Gaza Strip after Israel ordered the entire population - more than 1.1 million people - to leave the northern part of Gaza. Fearing catastrophic consequences, they warned that neither the demand to leave nor the total siege of Gaza imposed by Israel is compatible with international humanitarian law.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in panic as Israeli airstrikes continued. Over two million people have been pushed from the north and middle area of the Gaza Strip towards the south. The south, however, has not been spared from bombardment, with significant numbers of civilians killed there.
Israeli military operations have expanded into southern Gaza, forcing tens of thousands again to flee. Israel has ordered Palestinians in areas around the Gazan city of Khan Younis to evacuate to Rafah, farther south, near the border with Egypt. Many of them have been displaced more than once before from other parts of Gaza. Rafah is now hosting more than 50 percent of Gaza’s population.
There is no electricity, no water, no fuel, no food in Gaza. The World Health Organization (WHO) described the humanitarian impact of the evacuation orders as a “death sentence” for many and said that it is “impossible to evacuate vulnerable hospital patients from the north of Gaza.
The functioning of critical services is further compounded by the destruction of water and sanitation, hospitals, electricity lines and cell towers, many of these sites treated as military target. Complete disruptions of communications and internet services, including satellite connections, have been imposed by Israel several times, creating panic and severely disrupting access to essential services and humanitarian efforts.
Some 1.7 million people – more than 75 percent of the total population of Gaza - are displaced due to the attacks by the Israeli military or Israeli evacuation orders. Among those uprooted by the war are 1 million children, including some 17,000 unaccompanied or separated boys and girls.
The displaced people are now sheltering across emergency shelters (UNRWA and public shelters), informal sites or in close vicinity to up to 155 UNRWA shelters and distribution sites and within host communities in increasingly dire conditions.
UNRWA shelters are accommodating far more people than their intended capacity. Overcrowding is leading to the spread of disease, including acute respiratory illness and diarrhea. In the north of Gaza, hundreds of thousands of people who are unable or unwilling to move to the south remain amid intense hostilities. They are struggling to secure the minimum amount of water and food for survival.
Intense Israeli bombardments from air, land, and sea continue across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties and destruction. Ground operations by Israeli forces continue across much of Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are seeking shelter, despite being unable to leave Gaza and the lack of safe havens as even hospitals and UN facilities, which under international humanitarian law are given special protection, are attacked.
Rafah governorate is the main refuge for those displaced, with some 1.5 million people squeezed into an extremely overcrowded space, following the intensification of hostilities in Khan Younis and Deir al Balah and the Israeli military’s evacuation orders. According to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, their living conditions are abysmal. People lack the basic necessities to survive, stalked by hunger, disease and death.
According to UNRWA, mor than 350 incidents impacting 163 UNRWA premises, including direct hits on UNRWA installations and different UNRWA installations sustaining collateral damage, have so far been reported. Many people have been killed and injured by Israeli security forces whilst seeking safety in places protected by international humanitarian law.
Since the start of hostilities, over 70 percent of hospitals in the Gaza Strip were forced to shut down due to the damage they sustained, lack of power and supplies or evacuation orders, increasing the pressure on the remaining health facilities that are still operational. Currently, only 11 out of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are partially functional and able to admit new patients, although services are limited.
An estimated 50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, are in desperate need of prenatal and postnatal care. 350,000 people have non-communicable diseases and need access to medical care. There are overall 155,000 pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, as well as more than 135,000 children under two in the Gaza Strip with high vulnerability.
Hospitals are struggling with severe shortages of fuel and medical supplies, and cannot restock supplies. Hospitals, which under international humanitarian law are given special protection, are attacked by Israeli Defense Forces. The WHO has documented more than 435 attacks on health care facilities or personnel across Gaza in six months of conflict.
The humanitarian supplies that reached Gaza since October 21 have only slightly alleviated the shortages of water, food, and medicines. Prior to the current crisis, around 500 truckloads of goods moved into Gaza every work day - a monthly average of nearly 10,000 truckloads of commercial and humanitarian commodities. Israeli authorities continue to restrict the flow of humanitarian supplies, including fuel, especially to the north of the Gaza Strip.
A water crisis is looming in the UN shelters and throughout the Gaza Strip due to damaged infrastructure, lack of electricity needed to run pumps and desalination plants, and limited water supply on the local market. Water supplies cannot be replenished due to the total blockade of Gaza by Israeli authorities. The only power plant in Gaza is out of fuel and has had to cease operations, causing an immediate power outage that continues throughout the Gaza Strip. Only one of the three water supply lines from Israel are operational. Grave concerns about waterborne diseases due to water consumption from unsafe sources persist, particularly in the north.
The entire population of the Gaza Strip - more than 2.2 million people - is affected by acute hunger and is at immediate risk of famine. Due to the wide-reaching impacts of Israel’s war and its ongoing blocking of aid deliveries, famine is imminent in northern Gaza and is projected to occur anytime between now and May, according to the latest report published by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
The rest of the Gaza Strip is also at the risk of famine if hostilities do not cease and humanitarian assistance at scale does not reach those most in need. 1.1 million people – half of the population - in Gaza are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Dozens of children have died of malnutrition and dehydration. Humanitarian sources say famine is already a fact, at least in northern Gaza.
Israel claims its retaliatory airstrikes and measures are targeting HAMAS installations, but civilians - including humanitarian workers and health personnel - are bearing the brunt of the attacks, in serious violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The United Nations has urged the Israeli government to cease its collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza, emphasizing that collective punishment is a war crime.
The United Nations, including Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres and High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker TĂĽrk, humanitarian organizations, human rights organizations, and independent UN human rights experts have repeatedly called for the protection of civilians, an immediate ceasefire and the allowance of urgently needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, while influential governments around the world continue to fuel the conflict and take no action to prevent the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the territory. An immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions in the Gaza Strip.
Amid constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces, and without shelter or the essentials to survive, public order is expected to completely break down due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible.
On October 27, the UN General Assembly (GA) adopted a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce”. The GA resolution also demands “continuous, sufficient and unhindered” provision of lifesaving supplies and services for civilians trapped inside the Gaza Strip. The world body approved the resolution by an overwhelming majority of 120 to 14 votes, with 45 abstentions.
On December 12, the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution, demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and well as “ensuring humanitarian access”. The resolution also reiterated the GA’s demand that all parties comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, “notably with regard to the protection of civilians”. The resolution passed with a huge majority of 153 in favour and 10 against, with 23 abstentions.
However, the General Assembly’s resolutions are not legally binding like the Security Council’s.
While the UN Security Council had failed for weeks to adopt a resolution calling at least for some kind of halt to the hostilities to assist deliveries of humanitarian aid, it adopted its first resolution on November 15 concerning Israel's war against Gaza. Resolution 2712 calls for "extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” in the Gaza Strip “for a sufficient number of days" to let aid in, repair damage to critical infrastructure such as hospitals, water wells and bakeries, and to enable medical evacuations, especially of children. The Security Council further called on all parties to refrain from depriving the civilian population in Gaza of basic services and aid indispensable to their survival, consistent with international humanitarian law.
On December 22, the UN Security Council passed another resolution on Gaza. Rather than demanding a cease-fire, resolution 2720 (2023) calls for the warring parties to create "the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities." The 15-member body called for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for sustainable cessation of hostilities. The Council also requested the Secretary-General to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for the Gaza Strip.
On February 20, 2024, the UN Security Council again failed to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza due to a US veto, marking the second time since early December 2023 that Washington has blocked such a text.
On March 25, 2024, the UN Council adopted a resolution demanding “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip. Resolution 2728 (2024), which also calls for "the urgent need to expand the flow" of aid into Gaza, passed by a vote of 14 in favor to none against, with the United States abstaining. Yet Resolution 2728 neither names the grave violations of international law committed in Gaza nor the party primarily responsible.
A four-day humanitarian ceasefire was announced on November 22. Israel and the Palestinian armed group HAMAS agreed to release Israeli hostages - exclusively women and children - in return for a four-day pause in fighting and the release of Palestinian prisoners. After the humanitarian pause had entered into force on November 24, airstrikes, shelling, and ground clashes ceased.
The pause in fighting allowed the Palestinian and the Egyptian Red Crescent Societies and UN agencies Nations to scale up the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The truce was extended twice and expired on November 30. On December 1, the attacks on Gaza were resumed by the Israeli military. Humanitarians warned that despite the short pause in fighting, much more aid is needed, urgently, as the level of aid to Palestinians in Gaza remains completely inadequate to meet the huge needs of 2.3 million people.
International human rights groups have repeatedly called on the international community and particularly the United States, European Union member states, and the United Kingdom to take concrete measures to protect Gaza’s civilian population from unlawful attacks, and refrain from any statement or action that would, even indirectly, legitimize war crimes, crimes against humanity and other violations of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip.
Humanitarian organizations, human rights organizations, and legal experts have said that the killing of thousands of innocent children and women, the siege on an entire civilian population, and the trapping of bombarded civilians behind closed borders in Gaza are crimes under international law. They demand accountability for the crimes committed against civilians in Gaza, from political and military leaders as well as those who provided arms and political or other support.
On April 6, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the resolution also urges all states “to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel.”
Hundreds of humanitarian organizations and human rights groups from around the world have also called for an end to arms transfers to Israel.
Meanwhile, Israel's allies - including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany - continue to provide political and military support for a war on civilians that has already claimed more than 30,000 lives and is characterized by grave war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli forces. These include collective punishment of the civilian population, use of starvation as a method of warfare, denial of humanitarian aid, indiscriminate killings of civilians, disproportionate attacks, forced displacement, torture, enforced disappearance and further atrocity crimes.
On March 25, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories found strong indications that Israel's executive and military leaders and soldiers are acting with genocidal intent in Gaza. After analyzing Israel's actions and patterns of violence in its onslaught on Gaza, dehumanizing rhetoric from senior Israeli officials and the actions of soldiers on the ground, the Special Rapporteur’s report said that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide had been met.
In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) begun hearings in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in its war in Gaza. South Africa asked the court to demand an emergency suspension of the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza strip. Israel denies the accusation of genocide, although its security forces have killed or wounded more than five percent of the civilian population within months and the political leadership is depriving the people in Gaza of access to basic means of survival.
In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice on January 26 confirmed that Palestinians have a right to be protected from acts of genocide, ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent actions that amount to genocide. Among the provisional measures, the Court also ordered Israel to allow the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid into the war-shattered enclave and to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services to Palestinians there.
On March 28, the ICJ issued new provisional measures for Israel as the catastrophic humanitarian situation in bombarded and besieged Gaza continues to deteriorate, and famine is immanent. The legally binding order compels Israel to take "all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay" to send in "urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance", including food, water, shelter, fuel and medical supplies.
The Court also unanimously ordered Israel to increase “the capacity and number of land crossing points” and to maintain “them open for as long as necessary”. In its new order, the ICJ said Israel must act "in full co-operation with the United Nations". Despite the ICJ rulings, Israel has not stopped its relentless attacks on Gaza and continues to fail to provide or even facilitate the delivery of essential supplies for the survival of some 2.3 million people living in Gaza.
Donations
Your donation for the emergency in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the Palestine refugee crisis can help United Nations agencies, international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their local partners to rapidly provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other aid to the people who need it most.
- UN Crisis Relief: Occupied Palestinian Territory
https://crisisrelief.un.org/opt-crisis - United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA): Donations
https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page/en_EN - World Food Programme: State of Palestine emergency
https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/palestine-emergency - UNICEF: State of Palestine Appeal
https://www.unicef.org/appeals/state-of-palestine - Islamic Relief Worldwide: Palestine emergency appeal
https://islamic-relief.org/appeals/palestine-emergency-appeal/ - Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC): Donate to Gaza
https://donate.nrc.no/en-gaza - International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC): Israel-Gaza emergency appeal
https://www.icrc.org/en/donate/israelgaza - Palestine Red Crescent Society
https://www.palestinercs.org/donation/?langid=1 - Medical Aid for Palestinians
https://www.map.org.uk/ - International Recue Committe (IRC): Gaza Appeal
https://help.rescue.org/donate/evergreen-crisis-web - Plan International: Gaza-Middle East crisis appeal
https://plan-international.org/emergencies/gaza-middle-east-crisis-appeal/ - Oxfam International: Gaza Crisis Appeal
https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/emergencies/gaza-crisis-appeal
You may also consider an unearmarked donation to organizations that are active in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
- Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF): Palestine
https://www.msf.org/palestine - Save the Children International: Gaza Emergency
https://www.savethechildren.net/what-we-do/emergencies/gaza-emergency - Action Against Hunger: Occupied Palestinian Territories
https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/location/middle-east/west-bank-gaza/
To find other organizations to which you can donate, visit: Humanitarian Crisis Relief, Refugees and IDPs, Children in Need, Hunger and Food Insecurity, Medical Humanitarian Aid, Vulnerable Groups, Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations, and Human Rights Organizations.
Further Information
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - occupied Palestinian territory
https://www.ochaopt.org/ - United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
https://www.unrwa.org/ - ACAPS: Palestine
https://www.acaps.org/en/countries/palestine - European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO): Palestine
https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/where/middle-east/palestine_en - International Crisis Group: Israel/Palestine
https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/israelpalestine - Council on Foreign Relations: Global Conflict Tracker: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict
- UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Palestine
https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/palestine - Human Rights Watch (HRW): World Report 2024: Israel and Palestine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/israel-and-palestine - Human Rights Watch (HRW): World Report 2023: Israel and Palestine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/israel-and-palestine - Amnesty International Report 2022/2023: Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/
Last updated: 22/04/2024