Gaza Crisis

The situation in Gaza has never been more desperate.

Months of unrelenting fighting and deprivation in Gaza have left thousands of children dead, while those who survive face continued war, siege, hunger and unimaginable loss.

Now, with an invasion on Rafah looming, families have been ordered to leave for yet another so-called "humanitarian zone" in Al-Mawasi. Many of these are families from other parts of Gaza who were originally told to go to Rafah after their homes and towns were bombed.

It's hard to believe the living nightmare children have endured for seven months could get worse. But right now, that's what's unfolding.

Children are dying because of starvation and disease at the fastest rate ever recorded. Families are being forced to forage for scraps of food left by rats and are eating leaves to survive.

Our teams have been working around the clock to get vital supplies to families. But time is running out.

Nearly all children in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. And after over seven months of siege and bombing, children's mental health in Gaza is being pushed beyond breaking point.

We urgently need your support. Your generous donation to our Emergency Fund can provide children and families affected by the war in Gaza, as well as other disasters across the world, with life-saving essentials like food, water and crucial mental health support.

Our Emergency Fund not only enables us to respond immediately when a disaster strikes, it also allows us to respond to the countless ongoing crises around the world that don't hit the headlines.   

This fund allows us to pool resources before emergencies happen. This means that we can plan, prepare for and deliver aid to children and communities as soon as a crisis hits.

Since 7 October we've reached over 500,000 people, including more than 270,000 children.

Health

• We’re distributing medical supplies to health facilities in Gaza
• Working with local partners, we’ve distributed hygiene products
• Our Emergency Health Unit is working with a partner in Gaza to treat children with minor illnesses, critically ill children and newborns and providing mobile clinics in areas that cannot easily access services
• The Emergency Health Unit is also working with midwife staff from a partner organisation to set up a delivery and postnatal inpatient ward. This includes recruiting midwives and doctors, obtaining medical supplies and providing antenatal and postnatal care to mothers at clinics
• We’ve issued 1,000 copies of our paediatric blast injuries manual, which helps surgeons to treat these injuries in children
• In Egypt, we’re supporting hospitals and ambulances receiving medical evacuees from Gaza, including assistance for premature babies.
  

Nutrition

• We’re distributing food parcels and drinking water
• We’ve trained community volunteers on screening of children under 5 for malnutrition, infant and young child feeding practices in emergency and how to identify children with danger signs and to refer them to the nearest medical center or health facility
• We’re assessing 10 shelters to identify where there are gaps for nutrition services as well as to avoid duplication of services already provided
• We’ve delivered breastfeeding support kits and breast milk substitute kits

Shelter

• We’ve distributed shelter kits, including mattresses, plastic mats and bedding sets

Mental health support

• We've provided mental health and psychosocial support to children and their families and we’re delivering cash to families to help them to buy essentials
• We've set up five child-friendly spaces with our partners
• In Egypt, we’re training frontline staff on child safeguarding as well as mental health and psychosocial support.

Education

• We have been working on a plan for children in Gaza to restart their education.

We're also responding to growing needs in the West Bank and Lebanon, and gearing up our teams across the region to prepare for any rise in children's needs as the situation evolves.

We can do more and we are ready to scale up our response as soon as more access is possible.

This response will include:

• distributing more essential supplies, such as water, food, toiletries, cooking utensils, and other household essentials
• delivering further Mental Health and Psychosocial Support services for children and caregivers
• setting up child friendly spaces so children have a safe space to play and recover
• distributing warm clothes and blankets, as well as more cash and vouchers so families can buy food, medicines and any other essentials.
• providing fuel and water infrastructure for hospitals and distributing water storage tanks
• ensuring children continue to have access to education, by setting up temporary learning spaces and repairing damaged schools
• identifying the most at-risk children for referrals to protection related services

But we can’t do it without your help. Donate to our Emergency Fund today and help us reach children caught up in disasters around the world.

The conditions needed to scale-up humanitarian assistance in Gaza are currently not being met and humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war. An adequate humanitarian response is not possible without an immediate and definitive ceasefire.

Children are terrified, have been forced from their homes, and are cut off from an education. Civilians can never be targeted and there are no circumstances under international humanitarian law in which this can be ignored. The killing and maiming of children, along with attacks on schools and hospitals, is a grave violation, and those responsible should be held to account for their actions. 

All children captured must be released immediately and unconditionally. Civilians, and infrastructure essential for their lives, such as hospitals and schools, must be spared from the violence.  

The only way to truly protect children’s lives is to halt this violence. 

Find out more about the conflict:

• BBC: History of the conflict explained
• Al Jazeera: What’s the Israel-Palestine conflict about? A simple guide
• Guardian: What are the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict?
• PBS: The complicated history of conflict between Israel and Palestinians