Escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip
The current situation is having a catastrophic impact on children and families
More than a million children in the Gaza Strip are caught in a devastating situation marked by widespread destruction, relentless attacks, displacement, and severe shortages of essential necessities such as food, water, and medicine.
There is no safe place left for them in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of people have been reported killed and injured, with thousands of children among the victims. Around 1.7 million people have been displaced, many of them multiple times. Their homes have been destroyed; their families have been torn apart.
Even before the current crisis, children in the State of Palestine had grown up under the shadow of recurrent violence and crushing poverty. Now, children in the Gaza Strip face the deadly effects of disease and malnutrition as escalating hostilities cut them off from safe water, food and medicine.
UNICEF continues to focus on the critical needs of children for protection and humanitarian assistance – but access remains difficult and dangerous.
Read more about the current situation in the Gaza Strip:
UNICEF continues to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to protect civilians and humanitarian workers, and to ensure safe and sustained access to aid.
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What is UNICEF doing to help children in the Gaza Strip?
UNICEF is actively engaged in joint efforts with other UN agencies to facilitate the coordination of the humanitarian response and address emerging needs in the Gaza Strip.
UNICEF staff, along with our United Nations and civil society partners, remain in Gaza but must be allowed to provide life-saving aid at scale, especially where access is most constrained. UNICEF has dispatched emergency supplies including water, life-saving medicines and equipment, but much more is needed to meet the immense needs of civilians.
UNICEF has supported water trucking and additional water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activities to shelters. UNICEF is providing water containers, chlorine tablets for water purification, and distributing family hygiene kits and hundreds of thousands of bars of soap. UNICEF is also providing fuel to operate wells, desalination plants and water trucking, as well as operating waste and sewage disposal.
UNICEF is delivering medical supplies to hospitals and health facilities, including incubators and supplies for newborns and kits for midwives. Working through partners, UNICEF is also contributing to the overall health response through mobile teams, primary health care consultations and support for postnatal care and high-risk pregnancies.
UNICEF continues to work with implementing partners to provide recreational activities, emergency learning, and awareness sessions in support of children’s well-being, reaching more than 200,000 students and teachers, even under the most strenuous circumstances.
UNICEF provides humanitarian cash transfers to thousands of families and children to enable them to buy essential items like food, water, and hygiene products that are still available despite shortages and the fragility of the situation.
But this is far from enough. The needs are immediate and immense in terms of water, food, medicine, fuel, and essential goods and services.
The delivery of aid is a matter of life or death for children in Gaza.
*Page updated on the 6th of June 2024.