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UNRWA Situation Report #102 on the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem - All information from 15-17 April 2024, is valid as of 17 April 2024 at 22:30

UNRWA

19 Apr 2024

Key Points

The Gaza Strip

• Israeli Security Forces (ISF) operations from air, land and sea continue across the Gaza Strip. On 11 April, ISF announced that a ground operation had begun in central Gaza. ISF operations continue to cause civilian casualties, displacement and destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure.
• On 17 April, OCHA launched the Occupied Palestinian Territory Flash Appeal with a requirement of US$ 2.82 billion for UN agencies, INGOs and NGO partners to address humanitarian needs of 3 million people for nine months in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Within the Flash Appeal, UNRWA requires US$ 1.2 billion, 42 per cent of all the requirements, demonstrating the critical importance of UNRWA, its presence and reach both within Gaza and the West Bank.
• The Flash Appeal highlights a number of critical changes in the operating environment to be able to provide humanitarian assistance at scale, such as:
  • Safe and sustained access to all people in need across the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
  • More entry and supply routes, including increase via land and the opening of maritime corridors.
  • Improved ability to move within Gaza to effectively deliver assistance to the north.
  • Entry of critical humanitarian items, including communications equipment and protective gear for humanitarian staff.
  • Funding must be timely and flexible to allow humanitarian actors to adapt programming to a highly dynamic context.
  • Visas and permits for UN and INGO staff to support Gaza operations from Jerusalem, and for staff to move within the West Bank.
• On 17 April, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA addressed the Security Council on the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the unprecedented threats and challenges facing the agency.
• On 16 April, UNRWA released a brief on detentions and ill-treatment of detainees from Gaza in Israeli detention centres. U The Israeli Security Forces (ISF) started to release Palestinian detainees in early November 2023. UNRWA interviewed several of the detainees among them men, women, children and UNRWA staff.
• [1] According to UN WOMEN, more than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza to date, among them an estimated 6,000 women who left 19,000 children behind. Women who have survived have been displaced, widowed and are facing starvation. More than 1 million women and girls in Gaza have almost no food, no access to safe water, latrines, washrooms, or sanitary pads, with diseases spreading amid inhumane living conditions.
• OCHA's latest humanitarian needs and response update[2], covering humanitarian needs and response between 9-15 April, highlights the challenges faced in the delivery of health, nutrition, food security and wash services especially with regards to reaching northern Gaza. Restrictions by Israel on UNRWA access to the north have been in place since 24 March. The last time UNRWA was able to deliver food supplies to the area was on 23 January 2024.
• There has been very little significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza or improved access to the north. Since the beginning of April, an average of 182 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza per day via the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) and Rafah land crossings. This remains well below the operational capacity of both border crossings and the minimum target of 500 trucks per day.
• As of 17 April, the total number of UNRWA colleagues killed since the beginning of hostilities is 17****8.
• As of 17 April, up to 1.7 million* people (over 75 per cent of the population)** have been displaced across the Gaza Strip, the majority 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 weeks, a significant number of displaced people have moved further south.

*This includes 1 million people living in or near emergency shelters or informal shelters. As of 12 October, approximately 160,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were recorded in UNRWA shelters in Northern Gaza and Gaza City governorates. UNRWA currently estimates that the population of Northern Gaza and Gaza City governorates is up to 300,000 people. 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 ISF, and the constant need for safer locations have resulted in people being displaced multiple times.

**UNRWA reported on 15 January in Situation Report 64 that up to 1.9 million IDPs were 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.