2018 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO)

20 Dec 2017

The humanitarian context of the oPt is unique amongst today’s crises and remains directly tied to the impact of the occupation, which marked its 50th year in June 2017. A protracted protection crisis continues. At least 1.9 million Palestinians experience, or are at risk of, conflict and violence, displacement and denial of access to livelihoods, among other threats. The most vulnerable Palestinians are currently denied or restricted in their access to essential services such as water and health care. A recurrent cycle of shocks, natural and manmade, has eroded the resilience of vulnerable households to cope with the prolonged nature of the humanitarian crisis.

These dynamics are significantly magnified in the Gaza context by the protracted blockade, imposed by Israel citing security concerns after the takeover of Gaza by Hamas in 2007, three major escalations of hostilities in less than ten years and the intensification of the internal divide between the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) and the defacto Hamas authorities during the course of 2017. Combined, these factors have devastated public infrastructure, disrupted the delivery of basic services and undermined already vulnerable living conditions. Across the oPt, one in two Palestinians, or roughly two and a half million people, will need some form of humanitarian assistance in 2018.

In this document

Gender analysis and priority gender needs in the occupied Palestinian territory

The humanitarian context in the oPt has a differentiated impact on men, women, boys and girls. Gender analysis assists in identifying groups of the affected population that should be prioritized in the humanitarian response, defining their humanitarian needs based on the differentiated impact, and ensuring gender responsive humanitarian interventions that mitigate negative coping mechanisms prioritizing needs of people with disabilities, divorced or widowed women, adolescent girls and boys, and the elderly. Gender analysis also expands on household level vulnerability from a focus on female-headed households to include also households with high dependency ratios, headed by a person with a disability or a person in detention, married women who are in a separated or polygamous marriage, and widows and divorcees without secure tenure rights.

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Emergency response preparedness (ERP) and disaster risk management (DRM)

The occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) is vulnerable to manmade and natural disasters. The most recent overall assessment of risks in the oPt identified the following main risks: natural hazards, including earthquakes, floods, droughts and landslides; and manmade hazards, including conflict escalation, severe stress on natural resources, environmental degradation, and rapid and unregulated urbanization.

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