In a media landscape of competing claims from multiple sources this UN humanitarian situation update is the most reliable.
Please
note the body of this document contains
multiple links. To read the official text with all active links go
to:
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-update-174-gaza-strip
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UNITED
NATIONS OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATION OF HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS (OCHA)
Humanitarian Situation Update #174 | Gaza Strip
03
Jun 2024
The
Humanitarian Situation Update is issued by OCHA Occupied Palestinian
Territory three times per week. The Gaza Strip is covered on Mondays
and Fridays, and the West Bank is covered on Wednesdays. The
“Humanitarian Situation Update” is a rebranding of the “Flash
Update”. The next Humanitarian Situation Update will be published
on 5 June, and the next Humanitarian Response Update will be
published on 12 June.
Key
Highlights
Humanitarian
Developments
*
Israeli bombardment from the air, land, and sea continues to be
reported across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian
casualties, displacement, and destruction of houses and other
civilian infrastructure. Ground incursions and heavy fighting also
continue to be reported, particularly in Rafah. Intensified
hostilities following the issuance of evacuation orders and the
Israeli military operation in Rafah have so far forced the
displacement of about one million people, amid a decline in the entry
of humanitarian aid.
*
Between the afternoons of 31 May and 3 June, according to MoH in
Gaza, 195 Palestinians were killed and 720 were injured, including 40
killed and 150 injured in the past 24 hours. Between 7 October 2023
and 3 June 2024, at least 36,479 Palestinians were killed and 82,777
were injured in Gaza, according to MoH in Gaza.
*
The following are among the deadly incidents reported between 30 May
and 3 June:
*
On 30 May, at about 13:25, at least three Palestinians were
reportedly killed and others injured when an UNRWA school was hit in
Jabaliya Refugee Camp, in North Gaza.
*
On 31 May, at about 1:05, eight Palestinians, including two children
and three women, were reportedly killed and others injured when a
house was hit in Bloc 9 in Al Bureij Refugee Camp, in Deir al Balah.
*
On 31 May, at about 6:25, three Palestinian men were reportedly
killed and others injured when a civilian car was hit in Al Helou
Street in An Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in Deir al Balah.
*
On 31 May, at about 20:00, three Palestinians including two women,
one of whom was identified as a journalist, were reportedly killed
and others injured when a house was hit in Al Jalaa Street in the
central part of Gaza city.
*
On 1 June, at about 15:00, two Palestinians were reportedly killed
and four others injured when Ali Bin Abi Talib School sheltering
internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Az Zaitoun neighbourhood of
Gaza city was hit.
*
On 2 June, at about 1:30, three Palestinians, including a man, a
woman, and an infant, were reportedly killed when a house was hit in
Ad Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza city.
*
Between the afternoons of 31 May and 3 June, no Israeli soldiers were
reported killed in Gaza. As of 3 June, 293 soldiers have been killed
and 1,878 soldiers have been injured in Gaza or along the border in
Israel since the beginning of the ground operation, according to the
Israeli military. In addition, according to the Israeli media citing
official Israeli sources, over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals,
including 33 children, have been killed in Israel, the vast majority
on 7 October. As of 3 June, it is estimated that 125 Israelis and
foreign nationals remain captive in Gaza, including fatalities whose
bodies are withheld. On 3 June, the Israeli military stated that it
has found, in Israel, the body of an Israeli killed in the attacks of
7 October 2023. According to media reports, he was thus far believed
to be held hostage in Gaza.
*
On 1 June, the Israeli military ordered residents of two blocs in
Beit Hanoun, in North Gaza governorate, to evacuate to the area west
of Gaza city. With an area of two square kilometres, the two blocs
were home to 7,284 Palestinians before 7 October and encompass two
UNRWA schools, one UNRWA distribution centre, and one health
facility. To date, 285 square kilometres, or about 78 per cent of the
Gaza Strip, have been placed under evacuation orders by the Israeli
military; this encompasses all areas north of Wadi Gaza, whose
residents were instructed to evacuate in late October, as well as
specific areas south of Wadi Gaza designated for evacuation by the
Israeli military since 1 December.
*
On 2 June, the head of the Emergency Committee for North Gaza
municipalities declared Jabalya town, Jabalya Refugee Camp, Beit
Lahya and Beit Hanoun as “disaster zones,” following the
withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area on 31 May. They appealed
to the international community and UN aid agencies to provide
immediate relief and shelter assistance as well as support the
municipalities in repairing damaged water wells and other critical
infrastructure. According to the same source, the most recent
three-week ground operation in northern Gaza resulted in the
destruction of 50,000 housing units, UNRWA shelters, and more than 15
water wells and other public infrastructure. The central market in
Jabalya Refugee Camp, the fifth floor of Al Awda Hospital, and the
main electricity generator at Kamal Adwan Hospital were also
destroyed, reported the Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD) in a
statement on 31 May. PCD teams have recovered tens of bodies, mostly
women and children, from Jabalya Refugee Camp, including 30 people
from the same family of whom 22 were women and children, and rescue
operations are still ongoing. Highlighting the challenges facing PCD
teams due to the lack of equipment, the director of Kamal Adwan
Hospital, Dr. Husam Abu Safiyeh, noted in a media interview that over
120 bodies had been recovered by medical teams from under rubble, and
that work was underway to repair damages and restore services at the
hospital despite limited capacities.
*
The intensification of hostilities and evacuation orders in Rafah
have forced Protection Cluster partners, like other humanitarian
actors, to evacuate their premises, with many providers, themselves
displaced, unable to re-establish services due to the lack of tents,
exorbitant rent costs, fuel shortage and rising transportation costs.
This has resulted in a limited number of frontline staff in Al Mawasi
area in Khan Younis, reports the Protection Cluster, and negatively
affected the availability and accessibility of protection services,
including for the provision of psycho-social support, awareness
raising activities, and the re-establishment of referrals for
Gender-Based Violence (GBV) cases. It has also heightened the cost of
accessing services, disproportionately affecting women and girls. The
SOS Children’s village, the only currently functional shelter for
children without parental care, had to relocate the children and
their caregivers from Rafah to central Gaza but has a limited number
of tents and no capacity to receive more children. According to
UNRWA, the “humanitarian space continues to further shrink,” with
all 36 UNRWA shelters in Rafah now empty and the agency having had to
stop health and other critical services in the governorate.
*
WFP is currently able to reach only 27,000 people with hot meals in
Rafah, nowhere near what is required, noted the World Food Program
(WFP) Country Director in Palestine, Matthew Hollingworth, in a press
briefing on 31 May following a ten-day mission to Gaza. Six bakeries
remain functional in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, while those in
Rafah have ceased operations due to the lack of fuel, he added. Deir
al Balah and Khan Younis, where almost a million people have fled,
are highly congested; people face dire shortages of food, clean
water, medical supplies and healthcare services and “public health
concerns are beyond crisis levels,” WFP stressed. WFP and its
partners are currently providing 400,000 hot meals per day in the
area but lack supplies to scale up the delivery of ready-to-eat
rations while commercial supplies are generally unaffordable.
Hollingworth observed that many families were resorting to leaving
their identification cards as collateral to pay for food supplies
from the market, “putting their own safety and future in jeopardy
because they need those identification cards to register for aid in
the future.” In northern Gaza, about 12,000 tons of aid, primarily
food, that has arrived via the northern crossings since 1 May has
provided some relief, but lack of access to clean water, nutritious
foods, health care and sanitation continue to devastate the area.
*
In Deir al Balah, Al Aqsa Hospital announced on 30 May that one child
had died in the facility due to malnutrition and lack of medical
treatment, and another 13-year-old child also reportedly died of
malnutrition on 1 June. “If nutrition supplies, especially
ready-to-use therapeutic food, used to address malnutrition among
children, cannot be distributed, the treatment of more than 3,000
children with acute malnutrition will be interrupted,” stated the
UNICEF Chief of Communications in Palestine, Jonathan Crickx,
underscoring that the “ongoing situation in Rafah is a disaster for
children.”
*
“With hostilities escalating due to the ongoing military operation,
the lack of health care will lead to increased unnecessary deaths and
suffering,” stressed the World Health Organization (WHO) on 1 June.
The Health Cluster reports that, as of 3 June, there are 15 partially
functional hospitals and five field hospitals, including two that are
partially functional and three that are fully functional. In North
Gaza, WHO informs, Kamal Adwan Hospital had resumed partial
functionality and access to Al Awda Hospital has now been restored.
In late May, Al Awda became inaccessible due to the intensification
of hostilities while 14 health workers, 11 patients and two mothers
accompanying their children remained inside the facility. The
Indonesian Hospital in the same governorate is still out of service
and the hospital has recently been impacted by shelling, according to
MoH in Gaza. In Rafah, all three hospitals remain non-functional, WHO
reports, and out of six field hospitals, only two are functional; the
International Medical Corps (IMC) field hospital remains fully
operational while the UAE Field Hospital is only partially
functional, continuing to provide services to 37 patients inside the
facility but is inaccessible to new patients.
*
Access constraints continue to undermine the safe delivery of
life-saving humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza, exacerbating the
needs of hundreds of thousands of people. With hostilities escalating
in both northern and southern Gaza, particularly in Rafah, security
and humanitarian access conditions have further deteriorated in May.
Despite the presence of a system to notify and coordinate
humanitarian movements, impediments, delays, and denials of missions
continue to frequently restrict the movement of humanitarian
personnel and the delivery of assistance. Between 1 and 31 May, out
of the 78 coordinated humanitarian assistance missions to northern
Gaza, 35 (45 per cent) were facilitated by Israeli authorities, 5 (6
per cent) were denied access, 27 (35 per cent) were impeded, and 11
(14 per cent) were cancelled due to operational or security reasons.
In addition, out of 270 coordinated humanitarian assistance missions
to areas in southern Gaza, 138 (51 per cent) were facilitated by
Israeli authorities, 33 (12 per cent) were denied, 52 (19 per cent)
were impeded, and 47 (17 per cent) were cancelled. Many missions
classified as “impeded” have experienced extended delays imposed
by Israeli authorities at holding points, with some lasting up to
nine hours at sensitive locations, significantly increasing the
security risks for humanitarian personnel.
Funding
*
As of 3 June, Member States have disbursed about US$1 billion out of
$3.4 billion (30 per cent) requested to meet the most critical needs
of 2.3 million people in Gaza and 800,000 people in the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem, between January and December 2024. For
funding analysis, please see the Flash Appeal Financial Tracking
dashboard.
*
The oPt HF has 118 ongoing projects, for a total of $72.5 million,
addressing urgent needs in the Gaza Strip (85 per cent) and West Bank
(15 per cent). The HF has allocated an additional $22 million to
bolster prioritized HF-funded projects in Gaza. Recently, 14 projects
for a total of $5 million have been approved under the Third Reserve
Allocation titled "Critical Humanitarian Aid for Gaza Amidst
Escalating Conflict and Displacement (Phase 3)." Following a
steep rise in displacement from Rafah to Khan Younis and Deir al
Balah and to capitalize on the operational presence of national
partners, these projects will be implemented by national NGOs (12
projects) or through a partnership between international and national
NGOs (2 projects). Since 7 October, the oPt HF has mobilized over
$100 million from Member States and private donors, designated for
programmes throughout Gaza. A summary of the oPt HF activities and
challenges in April 2024 is available through this link and the 2023
Annual Report of the oPt HF can be accessed here. Private donations
are collected directly through the Humanitarian Fund.
For
the most recent Gaza Humanitarian Response Update for the period
between 20 and 26 May, please visit: GazaHumanitarian Response Update | 20–26 May 2024. As of 3 June,
the Gaza Humanitarian Response Update will be issued every two weeks.
The next update will be issued on 12 June, covering the two-week
period between 27 May and 9 June.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An
Australian Perspective
According to the Gazan Ministry of Health, the predominately civilian Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023 is > 36,550 men, women & children killed and 82,959 wounded - with an untold number missing presumed dead.
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