UNRWA Situation Report #77 on the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (All information from 11-12 February 2024, is valid as of 12 February 2024 at 22:30 (local time))
UNRWA
14 Feb 2024
Days 128-129 of Hostilities
Key points
The Gaza Strip
Increased airstrikes in Rafah have heightened fears which would further hamper overstretched humanitarian operations. Nearly 1.5 million people are in Rafah, more than six times the population in comparison with before 7 October.
Intense fghting in/around Khan Younis (southwest of Gaza) over the last three weeks is causing loss of life and damage to civilian infrastructure, including UNRWA's largest shelter in the southern area, the Khan Younis Training Centre (KYTC). This is forcing thousands of Palestinians to fee further south towards Rafah, which is severely overcrowded, with reports of Israeli Forces' strikes in Rafah on 12 February.
According to OCHA since the start of 2024, humanitarian partners had planned 77 missions to deliver aid and undertake assessments to areas to the north of Wadi Gaza. Of those, only 12 were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, three missions where partial humanitarian objectives were met, 14 were impeded, 39 were denied access, and nine were postponed by the UN agencies. Facilitated missions primarily included food distribution, while the access of missions to support critical hospitals and facilities providing water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) services remained among those overwhelmingly denied. During the same period, there were 189 planned missions to areas assessed as necessitating coordination to the south of Wadi Gaza. Of these, 107 were facilitated, two missions where partial humanitarian objectives were met, 18 were initially facilitated but then impeded, 48 were denied access, and 14 were postponed internally. Missions to areas not requiring coordination south of Wadi Gaza are not included in the above.
The number of trucks entering into Gaza remains well below the 500 trucks a day target, with signifcant difficulties in bringing supplies in through both Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Rafah. As of 12 February, the Rafah border crossing was closed due to security concerns.
As of 12 February, the total number of UNRWA colleagues killed since the beginning of hostilities is now 156.
As of 12 February, up to 1.7 million* people (over 75 per cent of the population) ** have been displaced across the Gaza Strip, some multiple times.*** Families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety. Following intense Israeli bombardments and fghting in Khan Younis and the Middle Area in recent days, a signifcant number of displaced people have moved further south.
*This includes one million individuals residing in or near emergency shelters or informal shelters. As of 12 October, approximately 160,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were recorded in north Gaza and Gaza governorates. The ability of UNRWA to provide humanitarian support and updated data in these areas has been severely restricted. The ongoing hostilities, evacuation orders issued by Israeli Forces, and the constant need for safer locations have resulted in people being displaced multiple times.
**UNRWA has reported in Situation Report 64 that up to 1.9 million IDPs are either residing in 154 UNRWA shelters or near these shelters. Due to the continued escalation of fghting and evacuation orders, some households have moved away from the shelters where they were initially registered.
*** There are instances where the same IDPs are registered in multiple shelters due to the fuid movement of populations; hereafter, estimates are used for these shelters. UNRWA plans to conduct a more accurate count of IDPs in shelters, including informalshelters, as soon as the security situation allows.
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