The UN and partners estimate that at least US$6.6 billion is required to address the humanitarian needs of 3.3 million people in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

“For more than 50 days, people in North Gaza have been under siege. North Gaza has effectively been inaccessible to the UN. Our requests for access have been repeatedly and systematically denied by Israeli forces with devastating consequences: families are trapped under rubble, the sick and wounded cannot reach hospitals, and basic supplies—water, food, medical care—have run out.”

While hoping that the ceasefire in Lebanon will take hold, the expansion of the war to the West Bank, Syria and Yemen remains a health and human rights emergency.

Muhannad Hadi, Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, denounced the lack of security around aid deliveries to Gaza: “The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt. The survival of two million people hangs in the balance. Bakeries are closing one after the other for lack of flour or fuel to operate power generators”.

Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the UN on 12 Nov 24. She denounced illegal and inhumane Israeli activities in Gaza and the West Bank, including attempts to close UNRWA, and urged all UN members to take action to stop it.

More than 42 people killed and others injured in multiple attacks on homes and IDP shelters in Beit Lahiya. Cadavers and wounded remain trapped under the rubble or in the street. Dozens killed in Jabalya Refugee Camp and Tal Az Za’tar area. 

A genocide inside a genocide is unfolding in North Gaza as Israel bans UNRWA.

The extension of the war to the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen is a health and human rights emergency, and an escalation that threatens world war. 

Photo credit: Omar Elqataa

Israel launched a major military operation in Jabalya, displacing over 50,000 people. Muhannad Hadi, Humanitarian Coordinator for the OPT, stressed: “A military siege that deprives civilians of essential means of survival is unacceptable.“ 

Image: Displaced Palestinians inspect their tents after an Israeli airstrike hit the Al Aqsa Hospital courtyard in Deir al-Balah, October 14, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Of all the grim distinctions of the yearlong war in Gaza that followed the Hamas attack on Israel last Oct. 7, one may stand out for its deadly singularity: Palestinian civilians there have nowhere to go. Barricaded by barbed-wire fences, tanks and soldiers, they have been effectively imprisoned for 12 months in a 141-square-mile strip of land between Egypt and Israel that has become a killing zone.

As the 1-year anniversary of the Gaza war approaches, the Health Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace released a statement demanding a ceasefire, an end to military aid to Israel, and the recognition of Palestinian self-determination. 

On 9/23/24, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on the situation in the OPT released a statement prior to the 79th UN General Assembly calling for an end to the “appalling human suffering and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.” The statement summarizes the incomparable damage of 11 months of conflict and calls for a sustained, immediate and unconditional ceasefire. 

Ground incursions and heavy fighting continue, especially in Khan Younis, Deir al Balah, Gaza City & Rafah. The extension of the war to the West Bank and Lebanon is extremely alarming. 

Defense for Children International: "Targeting Childhood: Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank," details and analyzes 141 Palestinian child fatalities since 10/7. They found that 20% of the Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 2000 were killed after October 7, 2023, at a rate of one child every two days.

The extension of the war to the West Bank is extremely alarming.  Jenin is once again the epicenter of a massive military offensive, with hundreds of troops, backed by armored vehicles, fighter jets and drones, raiding the city along with Tubas, Tulkarem, and elsewhere. Many of the same tactics used by the Israeli military in 2002 and since are being repeated in this latest assault: killings, arrests, home demolitions, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and attacks on hospitals.

Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the Security Council on 8/29/24. After noting that they “have briefed this Council on the unconscionable suffering of civilian women, men and children on more than a dozen occasions,” she went on to recap the toll the Israeli war on Gaza has taken, including recent attacks on aid workers and the “devastating impacts on civilians” of repeated evacuation orders.

While all eyes in Israel are on a potential new regional war, there's another crisis going on – a pan-Palestinian water & sewage situation with dire health, social & political consequences. Israel, the main instigator of the crisis, seems to believe it won't be affected.

Food shortages, crumbling infrastructure, a failing medical system, flowing sewage, waste buildup, & summer heat have turned the humanitarian crisis in Gaza into a serious epidemiological threat. Ground incursions & heavy fighting also continues, as does rocket fire by Palestinian armed groups toward Israel. A case of polio has now been confirmed in a baby.

The horrific assaults on Gaza continue unabated with devastating health and humanitarian consequences. Of particular concerns are: constant evacuations of internally displaced people, overwhelmed and largely destroyed healthcare system, hunger and famine, risk of outbreak of paralytic polio epidemic, Israeli obstruction of aid, rising settler and army attacks in West Bank/East Jerusalem, clear evidence for Israeli torture of Palestinian detainees, and continued US support to Israel.

Since 11/23, Israeli forces have taken into custody thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, mostly men & boys, but some women & girls. They have generally been held in military facilities & further transferred to detention facilities & prisons inside Israel & the West Bank.