As of 7th October last year, the latest data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates a devastating toll within healthcare facilities, with 613 fatalities and over 770 injuries due to ongoing attacks. Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the WHO, condemned the persistent fighting and assaults on healthcare, stressing that these incidents are pushing the people of Gaza to their breaking point.
Children in the Gaza Strip face an alarming convergence of threats to their well-being as diseases surge, nutrition declines and the escalating hostilities enter their fourteenth week.
Tragically, numerous children have succumbed to the violence, while the living conditions for those who survive continue to deteriorate rapidly. Rising cases of diarrhoea and increasing food scarcity among children are heightening the risk of more child fatalities.
WHO’s data on healthcare attacks revealed that nearly 550 medical facilities and vehicles suffered impacts in the nearly 100 days since continuous Israeli airstrikes commenced in Gaza. These assaults have severely affected 94 healthcare sites, including 26 hospitals out of a total of 36 in the area.
Expressing deep concern, Catherine Russell, head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), emphasized that the children in Gaza are trapped in an ever-worsening nightmare, facing heightened risks from preventable diseases, food shortages, and inadequate access to water and basic services. She noted a significant spike in cases of diarrhoea among children under five, escalating from 48,000 to 71,000 within a single week starting on 17th December.
According to Eri Kaneko, spokesperson for the aid coordination office OCHA, the delivery of relief efforts in Gaza faces continuous hindrances due to on-ground conditions including security risks, logistical challenges, delays, and denials. Multiple inspections, long queues at checkpoints, constant bombardments, attacks on aid workers, damaged infrastructure, and communication breakdowns hamper aid operations.
Meanwhile, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) reported that since 7th October last year, up to 1.9 million people have been displaced multiple times across the Gaza Strip, representing over 85% of the population. Approximately 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) are currently sheltering in 155 UNRWA facilities across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, with an additional 500,000 people receiving assistance near these installations.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched an urgent appeal for $69 million to support its humanitarian response in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and neighbouring countries affected by the ongoing hostilities in Gaza. The agency highlighted the desperate need for aid among hundreds of thousands of civilians, underscoring the challenges posed by lengthy clearance procedures at borders, ongoing conflict, disrupted communication networks, insecurity, blocked roads, and fuel shortages.
Additionally, the deteriorating security situation along border areas between Israel and Lebanon has led to the displacement of approximately 76,000 individuals from their homes in southern Lebanon, as noted by IOM.
