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UNRWA Situation Report #103 on the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem - All information from 18-21 April 2024, is valid as of 21 April 2024 at 22:30

UNRWA

23 Apr 2024

1. Key points

The Gaza Strip

• Israeli Security Forced (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.

• According to Save the Children and the World Health Organization, the rate of attacks per month on healthcare in Gaza is higher than in any other recent conflict globally. There have been at least 435 attacks on health facilities or personnel across Gaza in the last six months, equivalent to 73 attacks every month since the war began on 7 October.

• Aid missions to the north continue to be denied by Israel Authorities, between 1 and 19 April, 15 per cent (27 out of 181) of aid missions to northern Gaza and areas in southern Gaza that require coordination have been denied or impeded by Israeli Authorities. The last time UNRWA was able to deliver food supplies to the area was on 23 January 2024; however, UNRWA remains critical in both the northern and southern response, with key distributions of food and non-food items such as medicines occurring in UNRWA installations such as health centres, emergency shelters and distribution centres.

• The destruction of waste management installations and medical waste disposal centres severely restricts the collection and disposal of solid waste management. In January and February, UNRWA and UNDP collected 10,000 tons of solid waste. Over 270,000 tons of solid waste across the entirety of the Gaza Strip remains uncollected.

• 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 186 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 21 April, the total number of UNRWA colleagues killed since the beginning of hostilities is 180, an increase of two.

• As of 21 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.