Children in Gaza need life-saving support
UNICEF continues to work with partners to provide assistance to children and their families.
The war in the Gaza Strip has taken an unconscionable toll on children. At least 15,600 have been reported killed, with thousands more injured. Nearly every child in Gaza knows what it is to be displaced: Their families have been torn apart, their homes destroyed.
No child will emerge from the horrors of bombardment without the imprint of trauma.
UNICEF is mobilizing resources to scale up and expand our emergency response. But only with safe, unrestricted access throughout Gaza can humanitarians get relief into children’s hands. The challenges of aid delivery in Gaza are many. The reasons to persist are more.
What UNICEF is doing now | What we are calling for | News and updates | Response challenges
Since the start of this war, UNICEF staff have remained on the ground, working with partners to provide safe drinking water to displaced families, treatment for severely malnourished children, and medical supplies and vaccines for children in hospitals and shelters.
UNICEF has been surging support to children in critical need and working to expand existing services while establishing new ones to reach families on the move. But unless aid is consistently allowed to enter the Gaza Strip – whether or not there is a ceasefire in place – roughly 1 million children will be living without the very basics they need to survive.
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 stocks for preventing malnutrition have run out and supplies for the therapeutic treatment of acute malnutrition are critically low. Populations across the Gaza Strip are at risk of famine as fighting has surged again and food remains dangerously scarce. Hunger and malnutrition intensified sharply since after aid was blocked from entering on 2 March, reversing clear humanitarian gains seen during the ceasefire earlier in 2025.
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 and increasing water production in Gaza after the crippling of two thirds of water and sanitation infrastructure has left children dehydrated, malnourished 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 is the only agency facilitating family reunification for the estimated 17,000 children who have been separated from their caregivers while war has raged. Especially as families begin to move back to their homes, we’ll strengthen efforts to ensure children remain safely in the hands of their parents, while continuing our work to trace and reunite families who have been torn apart.
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. As essential goods become more scarce and less affordable, UNICEF has already reached every third person in the Strip with the means to help meet their most basic needs.
Mental health support
UNICEF is providing basic mental health and psychosocial services in camps and shelters to give children space to play, seek comfort in one another, and experience glimmers of childhood. We’ll scale up these activities to help children cope with trauma, and bring some relief to parents aching to see their children at ease.
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What is UNICEF calling for?
- The ceasefire must be reinstated and sustained, all hostages must be released and reunited with their families, and international humanitarian law must be respected.
- Safe and unrestricted humanitarian access throughout the Gaza Strip for the flow of all necessary aid, through all reliable entry points, at scale and in a timely manner. This includes taking steps to address the security environment. The safe movement of humanitarian workers and supplies across the Gaza Strip must be guaranteed, and reliable telecommunications networks made available to coordinate response efforts.
- Respect and protection for the civilian infrastructure that children depend on, such as schools, hospitals, and water and sanitation infrastructure. The protection of Gaza’s remaining functional civilian infrastructure is critical to prevent further loss of life and provide care to the sick and wounded.
- Immediate medical evacuation for injured and sick children, in accompaniment with their family members, and for all with urgent medical needs to safely access critical health services or be allowed to leave.
- Protection for people on the move. Children and their families must be allowed to move freely and should not be forced to relocate.
- A lasting political resolution that prioritizes the rights and well-being of this and future generations of children.
What challenges does UNICEF face delivering support?
The blockade of humanitarian aid since early March 2025 has had terrible consequences for one million children in the Gaza Strip, leading to shortages of food, safe water, shelter, and medical supplies. Without these essentials, malnutrition, diseases and other preventable conditions will likely surge, leading to an increase in preventable child deaths.
Meanwhile, infrastructure for distributing aid has been levelled. Warehouses lie in ruin; commercial supply chains have been choked out of existence. Communication blackouts continue to obstruct the coordination of delivery. And trucks carrying relief must circumvent cratered roads strewn with explosives.
Security remains fragile for other reasons. Aid workers themselves have been targeted, displaced and killed.
UNICEF will continue to do everything we humanly can to alleviate their suffering. We urge those with influence to secure safe, unrestricted access for our teams, into and across the Strip, so we can reach children no matter where they are.
Updated 27 May 2025
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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.