Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 19 August - 1 September 2024

An OCHA staff member dispatching polio vaccines in Deir al Balah area of the Gaza Strip. Photo by OCHA/Themba Linden, 2 September 2024

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Period: 19 August - 1 September 2024

The information below is provided on a bi-weekly basis by Clusters and select Technical Working Groups operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). For an overview of priority needs and activities by cluster, please see the Flash Appeal.

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Health

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Response

During the reporting period, 52 Health Cluster partners were active in Gaza, with 27 reporting on their response activities. As of 1 September, there were 15 Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) supporting the local healthcare workforce, including three in northern Gaza.
The first round of the polio vaccination campaign commenced in central Gaza on 1 September, aiming to immunize 156,583 children under the age of 10 in the area. A total of 510 teams have been deployed across central Gaza to facilitate the vaccination effort. During the first day, a total of 86,683 children were vaccinated. The campaign will be undertaken in phases, focusing on one zone at a time - starting in central Gaza, before shifting to the south, and finally to the northern governorates. The campaign will last three consecutive days in each zone and will be extended by a fourth day if needed. Round two of the campaign will aim to administer the second dose of the vaccine in four weeks’ time. The overall objective is to reach over 640,000 children under 10 across the Gaza Strip in each of the two rounds. In total, 40 Health partners are participating in this joint endeavor; 17 of them operate health service points where vaccinations are being administered, while another 23 are involved in outreach efforts to inform communities about the campaign.
The restoration of health services continues at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, with the emergency and outpatient departments and two operating theatres having now resumed functionality. An EMT will also be deployed to the facility in the upcoming weeks.
At the Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, the new emergency department and the hemodialysis unit are currently operational.
A hemodialysis unit comprising 18 dialysis machines has been established at the new Az Zawaida Field Hospital in Deir al Balah, which was hastily opened by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), jointly with the Ministry of Health (MoH), in late August, to provide urgent care to patients who fled from the Al Aqsa Hospital.

Challenges

Health partners continue to face challenges in accessing health facilities in northern Gaza, which are now at risk of becoming non-functional due to severe fuel and supply shortages.
Persistent obstacles hampering the entry of humanitarian trucks through the Kerem Shalom Crossing are causing shortages of medical supplies throughout the Gaza Strip.
The lack of a systematic mechanism for the medical evacuation of critically ill and injured patients out of Gaza means that the waiting list of patients keeps growing while the clinical conditions of many of them continue to deteriorate.

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Nutrition

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Response

Nutrition Cluster partners continue to conduct Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) screenings in shelters and healthcare facilities across the Gaza Strip. Since mid-January, a total of 280,591 children aged 6-59 months have been screened for malnutrition, including 168,000 in the last three months. Despite the significant scale up in the number of screenings conducted, the target to screen every child in Gaza at least once every three months is still far from being achieved. Of all screened children, 18,239 have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition, of whom 14,243 with Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) and 3,811 with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), including 145 suffering from SAM with medical complications. Cases identified have been receiving treatment in four Stabilization Centres and 102 Outpatient Programme sites supported by WHO, UNICEF and their partners.
Partners strive to expand the screening of pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBW). Some 36,587 PBW have been screened since January, of whom 30,113 in the last three months; a total of 2,110 PBW have been enrolled for treatment.
During the reporting period, frequent evacuation orders have limited partners’ capacity to implement humanitarian programmes. Between 17 and 31 August, only 20,788 children under the age of five and 9,757 PBW received a 30 day-allocation of Lipid-based Nutrient Supplements (LNS-MQ), compared to 26,825 children (22 per cent decrease) and 12,728 PBW (23 per cent decrease) in the first two weeks of August. In total, out of all 346,000 children aged 6-59 months targeted in Gaza, 70,000 (about 20 per cent) received some type of supplementary feeding – either Lipid-based Nutrient Supplements or High Energy Biscuits (HEB) – during the month of August.
Despite the challenges of bringing Ready to Use Infant Formula (RUIF) into Gaza in a temperature-controlled environment, 1,721 non-breastfed children received breast milk substitute (BMS) compared to 569 children in July and only 120 in June.

Challenges

The limited entry of humanitarian supplies and the loss of access to warehouses are rendering the transport and adequate storage of heavy nutrition supplies challenging, particularly in areas with limited infrastructure and resources, and for supplies that need to be stored in temperature-controlled environments (e.g., RUIF).
Continuous displacement is disrupting access to nutrition sites and distribution cycles; hindering partners’ ability to maintain consistent service delivery. Due to recurrent evacuation orders, coordinating nutrition support for newly displacement populations arriving at new shelters is becoming complex. Monitoring malnutrition cases, especially children, is challenging when they are forced to move locations for safety.

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Food Security

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