Humanitarian Situation Update #224 | Gaza Strip

The Humanitarian Situation Update is issued by OCHA Occupied Palestinian Territory three times per week. The Gaza Strip is covered on Mondays and Fridays, and the West Bank is covered on Wednesdays. The next update will be issued on 2 October.

Key Highlights

• Addressing the critical needs of over 2.1 million people during the rainy season cannot happen without unimpeded humanitarian access into and across Gaza.
• Many of the 215 temporary learning spaces serving nearly 34,000 children now risk being severely affected by upcoming floodings, the Education Cluster warns.
• Humanitarian organizations are providing about 600,000 daily meals across Gaza, but over 1.4 million people did not receive their food rations in September, due to dwindling supplies, the Food Security Sector reports.
• Only four out of 37 olive presses remain functional throughout the Strip and more than one million olive trees have been uprooted since October 2023, according to the Food Security Sector.
• Close to 100 per cent of Gaza’s population now live in poverty, compared with 64 per cent before the onset of escalated hostilities, according to the World Bank.

Humanitarian Developments

• Israeli bombardment from the air, land and sea continues to be reported across the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of civilian infrastructure. Ground operations, particularly in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, south of Gaza city, in and around An Nuseirat refugee camp in Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah also continue to be reported.
• Between the afternoons of 26 and 30 September, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 81 Palestinians were killed and 267 were injured. Between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, at least 41,615 Palestinians were killed and 96,359 were injured, according to MoH in Gaza.
• The following are some of the deadly incidents reported between 26 and 29 September:
  • On 26 September, two children and their parents were reportedly killed and others injured, when a house was hit in Jabalya, in North Gaza.
  • On 26 September, three Palestinian men were reportedly killed and others injured, when a house was hit in An Nuseirat refugee camp, in Deir al Balah.
  • On 27 September, four Palestinian men were reportedly killed and others injured, when they were hit in An Nuseirat New camp, in Deir al Balah.
  • On 27 September, at least three Palestinians, including one woman, were reportedly killed and four others injured, when a house was hit in Al Mawasi area, in western Rafah.
  • On 27 September, at least two children and their parents were reportedly killed and others injured, when a house was hit in An Naser area, in northern Rafah.
  • On 29 September, three Palestinian men were reportedly killed and six others injured, when a house was hit near Ash Shabia area in Ad Daraj neighbourhood, in Gaza city.
• Between the afternoons of 27 and 30 September, no Israeli soldiers were reportedly killed in Gaza, according to the Israeli military. Between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, according to the Israeli military and official Israeli sources cited in the media, more than 1,546 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, the majority on 7 October and its immediate aftermath. The figure includes 346 soldiers killed in Gaza or along the border in Israel since the beginning of the ground operation. In addition, 2,298 Israeli soldiers were reported injured since the beginning of the ground operation.
• As the rainy season approaches, the already dire living conditions in Gaza will deteriorate further, putting hundreds of thousands of people at heightened risk of additional displacement, asset loss, health hazards, and limited access to essential services. The UN and its humanitarian partners have developed a Winterization Plan, which aims to address the critical needs of over 2.1 million people in Gaza during the winter months, including more than 850,000 people across 49 neighbourhoods living in flood-prone areas. The plan, which is a subset of the Flash Appeal for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), requires US$242 million to implement a wide array of urgent interventions, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups including female-headed households, children, persons at risk of violence including gender-based violence, the elderly, disabled and chronically ill people. These include, among other things: enhancing conditions in shelters to protect people from the cold and flooding; distributing warm clothing, blankets, tarpaulins, heating materials to displaced households; installing temporary drainage systems to redirect floodwaters away from critical infrastructure, including dumping sites; and establishing winter-proof baby-friendly tents for breastfeeding and provision of nutrition services. However, the implementation of planned interventions cannot happen in the absence of unimpeded entry of required humanitarian items into Gaza, the availability of adequate quantities of fuel and facilitation of safe humanitarian movement between warehouses and distribution points. The ongoing challenges faced by humanitarian actors in accessing northern Gaza are particularly concerning, as some parts, historically, have a high potential for flooding.
• The ongoing crisis in Gaza will set children’s education “back by up to five years and risks creating a lost generation of permanently traumatized Palestinian youth,” according to a new study by the University of Cambridge, the Centre for Lebanese Studies and UNRWA. The report, the first to comprehensively quantify the toll of the crisis on learning, lays out three different scenarios for Gaza’s younger generation, depending on when the crisis ends and how promptly the education system is restored. The most optimistic projection – assuming an immediate ceasefire and rapid efforts to rebuild the education system – is that students will have lost competencies equivalent to two or three years of schooling. Beyond the ongoing crisis which has now lasted for over 11 months, this calculation also factors in the impact of COVID-19 and of the previous escalation of hostilities in May 2021. If formal classes do not resume until 2026, the losses could stretch for up to five years. This does not account for the additional impacts of trauma, malnutrition and forced displacement, which are further eroding children’s physical, cognitive and emotional wellbeing.
• The Education Cluster warns that many of the 215 established temporary learning spaces (TLSs), which serve nearly 34,000 children, now risk being severely affected by upcoming floodings. Geospatial analysis by the cluster reveals that eight TLSs are directly located within flood-prone areas, another 24 TLSs benefiting nearly 5,800 students are less than 100 metres away from such areas, and an additional 14 TLSs serving almost 3,000 students are near the coastline. With the destruction of essential drainage infrastructure due to the ongoing hostilities, expected heavy rains can cause significant damage and force the suspension of informal learning in these sites. The cluster stresses that ongoing restrictions by the Israeli authorities on the entry of educational materials and prefabricated structures, logistical and movement challenges for cluster partners, as well as severe overcrowding in sites hosting internally displaced persons, all risk hindering the implementation of urgent risk mitigation measures. The cluster also faces severe resource limitations preventing investments in infrastructural improvements.
• The ability of humanitarian partners to provide food assistance is increasingly shrinking across the Strip. The Food Security Sector (FSS) reports that, in September, due to continuous food supply shortages, more than 1.4 million people did not receive their monthly food rations across Gaza. Meanwhile, due to insecurity, damaged roads, the breakdown of law and order and access limitations along the main humanitarian route between the Kerem Shalom Crossing, Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, as well as the suspension of humanitarian aid entries to northern Gaza via the Jordan Corridor since the security incident of 8 September, at least 100,000 metric tons of food commodities, equivalent to two months of food parcels for the whole population, await entry outside the Strip; these goods must urgently be brought in to prevent further interruptions in life-saving distribution. FSS partners also continue to face challenges in keeping kitchens and bakeries operational; as of the third week of September, about 600,000 cooked meals prepared in more than 150 kitchens were provided daily to families across the Strip, but this level of meal production is expected to decrease in October due to dwindling supplies. Moreover, while 14 bakeries supported by humanitarian partners are presently operational, the continued functionality of the six bakeries in northern Gaza is contingent on securing yeast or shifting to the production of yeast-free bread. In its latest analysis concerning August, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) indicated that humanitarian assistance is only partially mitigating the severity of acute food insecurity and people are expected to continue enduring “large to extreme food consumption deficits, malnourishment, and hunger-related mortality” until “safe, consistent humanitarian access” facilitates both an increase in the quantity of aid delivered and effective distribution to people in need.
• The agricultural sector continues to suffer from increasing damage. FSS reports that recent military operations in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, have led to the additional destruction of more than 50 dunums (five hectares) of agriculture land and agriculture assets, including fields planted with eggplants, oranges, peppers and other vegetables owned by at least ten farmers. The latest satellite imagery collected in September 2024 shows that approximately 68 per cent (102 square kilometres) of permanent crop fields in Gaza exhibit a significant decline in health and density, compared with the average of the previous seven years. FSS warns that, while the olive harvest season has started in the Strip, there is a sharp decrease in olive production due to mass destruction of olive orchards, with more than one million olive trees uprooted since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023. Only four out of 37 olive presses remain functional throughout the Strip, but challenging access to fuel represents a key obstacle hampering the use of even this remaining equipment.
• The fishing sector, which used to be a primary source of livelihoods in Gaza, has similarly not been spared by the impact of nearly 12 months of escalated hostilities. According to a recent report by the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), since October 2023, 150 fishermen have died and 87 per cent of fishing boats have been damaged or destroyed, including 96 motorized boats and 900 unmotorized ones. Gaza’s port and other key fishing infrastructure have also been reportedly destroyed, with indirect losses estimated by PNGO at about $7 million per month. This, compounded by ongoing fishing restrictions, lack of equipment and fuel, is resulting in thousands of fishermen losing their livelihoods, stresses PNGO.
• The Palestinian economy is “nearing economic freefall, amidst a historic humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip” according to a report by the World Bank published on 23 September. Gaza’s economy has contracted by 86 per cent in the first quarter of 2024, with the overall GDP in the OPT declining by 35 per cent, “marking its largest economic contraction on record.” The report further highlights that the halt of most commercial operations and disruption of supply chains have caused the price of basic commodities to surge to about 250 per cent in August 2024 compared with August 2023. Moreover, severe damage to the agri-food economy has compounded the humanitarian crisis and devastated livelihoods; prior to 2020, 13 per cent of Gaza’s workforce were employed in the agricultural sector that also offered informal employment to over 90 percent of the population. Gaza’s sinking economy has led the World Bank to assess that close to 100 per cent of Gaza’s population now live in poverty, compared with 64 per cent before the onset of escalated hostilities.

Funding

• As of 30 September, Member States have disbursed about $1.68 billion out of the $3.42 billion (49 per cent) requested to meet the most critical needs of 2.3 million* people in Gaza and 800,000 people in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between January and December 2024. For funding analysis, please see the Flash Appeal Financial Tracking dashboard. (*2.3 million reflects the projected population of the Gaza Strip upon issuance of the Flash Appeal in April 2024. As of July 2024, the UN estimates that about 2.1 million people remain in the Gaza Strip, and this updated number is now used for programmatic purposes.)
• During August 2024, the occupied Palestinian territory Humanitarian Fund (oPt HF) managed 93 ongoing projects, totalling $79.7 million. These projects aimed to address urgent needs in the Gaza Strip (89 per cent) and the West Bank (11 per cent). They were strategically focused on education, food security, health, protection, emergency shelter and non-food items, water, sanitation, and hygiene, coordination and support services, multi-purpose cash assistance and nutrition. Of these projects, 52 projects are being implemented by international non-governmental organizations, 29 by national NGOs and 12 by UN agencies. Notably, 32 out of the 64 projects implemented by INGOs or the UN are being implemented in collaboration with national NGOs. Monthly updates, annual reports, and a list of all funded projects per year, are available on the oPt Humanitarian Fund webpage, under the financing section.