State of Palestine Humanitarian Situation Report

Highlights

• Since April 2017, Gaza has experienced power shortages, and the Gaza Power Plant (GPP) shut down completely after exhausting its fuel reserves causing an energy crisis. This has had a direct impact on the delivery of services, including health, water, sanitation, and education.
• UNICEF strengthened the emergency preparedness through establishing two Designated Emergency Shelters (DES) in four targeted schools in Gaza constructing needed WASH facilities in coordination with the MoEHE. The WASH facilities are gender sensitive and address the needs of women and girls in terms of suitability, infrastructure and security.
• UNICEF continued to provide emergency health care supplies, including neonatal lifesaving equipment to the Ministry of Health and its partner NECC, in Gaza. Since January, a total of 1552 children were provided with life-saving neonatal services.
• Child Protection issues continue to be of concern, as a total of 1,022 incidents of grave violations against children were monitored and documented in the first quarter of 2017, affecting 12,945 children in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This represents an increase in the number of affected children compared with the last quarter of 2016 when 1,305 incidents were documented, affecting 10,831 children.
• The situation in oPt remains volatile. In East Jerusalem, arrests and detentions of children remain high with 182 documented cases in the second quarter of 2017 compared with 136 children arrested in the first quarter. Since January, UNICEF supported 83 percent of arrested and detained children in East Jerusalem with legal counselling services through local partners.
• Children in Area C, in particular H2, face severe protection challenges. Since January, UNICEF through its partners the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine (EAPPI) and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), ensured that a total 8,537 (8123 children and 414 teachers) benefitted from the provision of protective presence (i.e. international volunteers accompanying children to-and-from school due to harassment and violence at checkpoints and when crossing settlements).
• A primary challenge in the oPt in 2017 has been the funding situation, negatively affecting the implementation of activities. Progress towards the cluster objectives has also been limited due to a lack of funds for humanitarian purposes.

Situation in numbers

800,000 children are affected out of
2,000,000 people affected
_{(UNICEF Humanitarian Action for Children 2017)}

221,396 children are targeted out of
327,483 people targeted
_{(UNICEF Humanitarian Action for Children 2017)}

UNICEF Appeal 2017
US$ 24.5 million

Author(s)

UNICEF State of Palestine

Publication date

April 2017

Languages

English