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UNRWA Situation Report #104 on the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem - All information from 22-24 April 2024, is valid as of 24 April 2024 at 22:30

UNRWA

26 Apr 2024

Key points

The Gaza Strip

On 23 April, Israeli Security Forces (ISF) announced a new evacuation order in parts of Beit Lahiya, in the North Gaza governorate. OCHA estimate that the area is home to at least 18,300 Palestinians before 7 October and includes three schools, including one UNRWA school, and the Indonesian Hospital, which reportedly hosts internally displaced persons (IDPs). Furthermore, ISF operations continue from air, land and sea continue across the Gaza Strip.
On 24 April, UNRWA launched its updated occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) flash appeal. UNRWA is seeking US$ 1.21 billion to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and respond to needs in the West Bank as violence increases. The Agency's emergency appeal covers its humanitarian response until the end of 2024. It aims to respond to the most urgent needs of 1.7 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip given the ongoing war, and more than 200,000 Palestine Refugees in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
On 24 April Sigrid Kaag the Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator (SHRC) for Gaza briefed the Security Council. Kaag reiterated that UNRWA is pivotal to providing life-saving humanitarian aid and critical social services to Palestine Refugees. "As such, UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable as a humanitarian lifeline and must be allowed to deliver on its mandate." She also noted that further steps are needed to enable sustained flow of humanitarian and commercial goods into Gaza in terms of volume, need and reach.
Since 7 October, according to OCHA more than two thirds of the population of the Gaza Strip have been placed under evacuation orders.
According to the Health Cluster, as of 24 April, Israeli authorities had approved just over half of all medical evacuation requests (5,263 out of 9,817). These limitations span from age restrictions, which have at times prevented essential evacuations of newborn babies, to the requirement for companions to have passports, in a context in which an estimated 30 to 40 per cent of people in Gaza have lost their identification documents during displacement, according to the Protection Cluster. The criteria for selecting patients who may be evacuated remain unclear, with only eight per cent of male patients aged 19 to 60 years approved for evacuation, compared to 74 per cent of women of the same age range.
Between 1 and 24 April, 57 per cent (39 out of 69) of humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza were facilitated by Israeli authorities, 35 per cent (24) were denied or impeded, seven per cent were cancelled (five) due to logistical constraints, and one remains pending as of the time of reporting. The last time UNRWA was able to deliver food supplies to the area was on 23 January 2024. UNRWA remains critical in both the northern and southern parts of Gaza, with key distributions of food and non-food items including medicines in UNRWA health and distribution centres and emergency shelters.
Commissioner-General of UNRWA on X highlighted that UNRWA Supplies and Dispatch Tracking Dashboard monitored that on 22 April more than 310 trucks of aid entered into the Gaza Strip via Kerem Shalom and Rafah land crossings. This is the highest number of trucks since the war began on 7 October. This increase, whilst welcomed, needs to be sustained, and access to commercial supplies expanded. So far in April the average number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip via Kerem Shalom and Rafah landing crossings is 192 trucks per day, which is still well below the operational capacity of both border crossings and the minimum target of 500 trucks per day.
As of 24 April, the total number of UNRWA colleagues killed since the beginning of hostilities is 180.
As of 24 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.