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UNRWA Situation Report #78 on the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (All information from 13-14 February 2024, is valid as of 14 February 2024 at 22:30 (local time))

UNRWA

16 Feb 2024

Days 130-131 of Hostilities

Key points

The Gaza Strip

• Increased airstrikes in Rafah have heightened fears that they will 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 fighting 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 flee further south towards Rafah, which is severely overcrowded. At the same time, population movements out of Rafah and towards Deir Al Balah and Nuseirat refugee camps in the Middle Area have been reported, following intensified airstrikes on Rafah.
• Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis continues to be besieged by Israeli tanks. There reportedly are 10,000 displaced people within the hospital's premises, including 300 medical personnel. On 14 February, ISF called for the evacuation of civilians seeking shelter in the hospital.
• According to OCHA, since the start of 2024, humanitarian partners have planned 77 missions to deliver aid and undertake assessments to areas to the north of Wadi Gaza. Of those, only 12 were facilitated by Israeli authorities, with partial humanitarian objectives met for another three. Of the remainder, 14 were impeded, 39 were denied access and nine were postponed by the UN agencies. Facilitated missions primarily included food distribution, while those 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 needing coordination to the south of Wadi Gaza. Of these, 107 were facilitated and partial humanitarian objectives were met for another two. For the rest, 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 Gaza remains well below the target of 500 per day, with significant difficulties in bringing supplies in through both Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Rafah.
• As of 15 February, the total number of UNRWA colleagues killed since the beginning of hostilities is now 158, an increase of two since UNRWA last update.
• As of 15 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 fighting in Khan Younis and the Middle Area in recent days, a significant 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 fighting 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 fluid movement of populations; hereafter, estimates are used for these shelters. UNRWA plans to conduct a more accurate count of IDPs in shelters, including informal shelters, as soon as the security situation allows.