Children in Gaza need life-saving support
UNICEF continues to work with partners to provide assistance to children and their families.
This page is currently under revision due to rapid developments in the region.
Two years of bombardments and fighting have wrought catastrophic devastation across the Gaza Strip – more than 64,000 children reportedly killed and injured, and homes, hospitals and schools destroyed. The toll on children is unconscionable.
Famine was declared in parts of the Gaza Strip, and Gaza’s entire population of children under five is at risk of facing acute malnutrition and in urgent need of support. More than 56,000 children have lost one or both parents. All children have experienced traumatic events and significant interruptions to their education.
UNICEF welcomes the ceasefire, which must now afford humanitarian actors the opportunity to safely resume at scale the massive response that the children of Gaza so desperately need.
What UNICEF is doing | What we are calling for | News and updates
How UNICEF is supporting children in Gaza
UNICEF staff have remained on the ground, working with partners day in and day out to provide safe drinking water to displaced families, treatment for severely malnourished children, psychosocial support, and medical supplies and vaccines for children in camps and shelters.
UNICEF has trucks stationed around the Gaza Strip, ready to bring in tents, nutrition supplies, essential medicines, learning and recreation kits, and water and sanitation supplies. All parties must ensure that UN humanitarian operations can resume safely and at scale.
Where and when access is possible, UNICEF is already active in the following areas. For the most up-to-date information, see our Situation Reports.
Immunization
UNICEF remains the leading provider of all vaccines for children and women throughout the Gaza Strip, including for polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and more. As infectious diseases continue to rage, we’re prioritizing vaccination to keep children safe from life-threatening disease outbreaks and facilitate the roll-out of other critical services.
Already, UNICEF and implementing partners have reached around 94 per cent of targeted children with both doses of the polio vaccine. Our immunization campaigns also bring essential nutrition supplies to children in need.
Nutrition
The lead agency in Gaza working to prevent and treat malnutrition in children, UNICEF continues to deliver critical nutrition services. But relentless conflict, the collapse of essential services, and severe limitations on the delivery and distribution of humanitarian assistance have led to catastrophic conditions for hundreds of thousands of people across the Strip. More than half a million people are already trapped in famine as widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths spread.
Health
With over 80 per cent of health facilities in the Gaza Strip damaged or destroyed, UNICEF will continue to help hospitals protect pregnant women and newborns from medical complications and infections, especially in neonatal units. We’re delivering incubators for newborns, medical kits for midwives and other emergency supplies.
In coordination with partners, UNICEF also continues to press for the medical evacuation of sick and injured children.
Water and sanitation
UNICEF will continue to play a key role in sustaining water production in Gaza after the crippling of two thirds of water and sanitation infrastructure has left children starving, dehydrated and fatally ill from infectious disease. We’ve helped repair water facilities; distributed water treatment chemicals; and delivered millions of litres of fuel for wells, desalination plants and generators.
Family reunification
UNICEF works with partners to identify, protect and find solutions for forcibly displaced children, especially in the face of new displacement orders and shrinking spaces for civilians and humanitarian operations across the Gaza Strip.
Humanitarian cash transfers
UNICEF is providing more humanitarian cash transfers than any other organization in Gaza. We’re supporting vulnerable groups – including female-headed households, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and families of children with disabilities – with cash assistance that allows them to buy food, water and hygiene kits still available in markets.
Mental health support
UNICEF is providing basic mental health and psychosocial services in camps and shelters to give children space to play and seek comfort in one another. These activities can bring a glimmer of relief to parents aching to see their children at ease.
Education
All formal schools remain closed to in-person education, leaving over half a million children without access to formal education for more than a year. Despite efforts to establish temporary learning spaces during the ceasefire from January 2025, renewed fighting disrupted all attempts to resume educational activities.
Support UNICEF’s work for children
What is UNICEF calling for?
- All parties must fully uphold their obligations as set out in the ceasefire agreement.
- Displaced people must be allowed to move freely and voluntarily return to their homes as soon as possible.
- Full, unfettered movement of humanitarian aid into Gaza. This includes humanitarian aid and commercial trucks entering at scale, with improved and faster clearance procedures, and all possible supply routes being open.
- National and international humanitarian staff have regular and unfettered access through several entry points to and from the Gaza Strip. Freedom of movement for humanitarian staff within the Gaza Strip is also a critical requirement of the provision of aid in a ceasefire context.
- The specialist supplies and staff needed to carry out unexploded ordnance detection and removal must be permitted entry to the Gaza Strip and must not be impeded in their operations, including coordination.
- A lasting political resolution that prioritizes the rights and well-being of this and future generations of children.
Is UNICEF operational in Israel?
In high-income countries such as Israel, Governments generally have adequate capacity to respond to emergencies. Upon request from the Government, UNICEF can extend support, such as mental health and psychosocial support for children.
In over 30 countries where UNICEF does not perform programmatic activities, National Committees for UNICEF serve as our dedicated voice, helping to raise funds for UNICEF’s work worldwide, to promote children’s rights, and to lift visibility for children threatened by poverty, disasters, armed conflict, abuse and exploitation. The Israeli Fund for UNICEF was established in 2009 to raise awareness of children’s rights in Israel and fundraise for UNICEF’s life-saving work across the world.
*Updated 26 October 2025
