Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 27 October - 9 November 2024

Vaccination against polio in the Gaza strip. Photo by UNRWA

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Period: 27 October - 9 November 2024

The information below is provided every other week 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

The second round of the emergency polio vaccination campaign has been completed, reaching 94 per cent of all children under the age of 10 throughout the Gaza Strip.
On 6 November, WHO and its partners medically evacuated 90 critical patients, alongside their 139 companions, outside Gaza; 84 patients were transferred to the United Arab Emirates and 20 to Romania to receive necessary health care. This was the largest medical evacuation in one day outside Gaza since the closure of the Rafah crossing in May 2023.
On 3 November, critical medical and surgical supplies and medications, including 150 units of blood, 20,000 litres of fuel and 60 boxes of dry food and water, the latter provided by the World Food Programme, were delivered to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in North Gaza.
During the reporting period, a total of 55 patients and their 67 companions were transferred from the Kamal Adwan and Al Awda hospitals in North Gaza to the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza city in two consecutive WHO-led missions. Five patients and three companions were also transferred from Al Shifa Hospital to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis to receive higher-level care.
A scale-up plan for health services in the Gaza governorate is ongoing to support the influx of displaced people, including patients, from North Gaza. During the reporting period, two new surgical Specialized Care Teams were deployed to the Public Aid and Al Ahli Arab hospitals in Gaza city. Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) medical supplies and equipment as well as individual kits were also delivered to the Gaza governorate to support 20,000 beneficiaries and 15 health facilities.
Field visits were conducted to the Al Mawasi area to identify all SRH service providers and strengthen mapping and referral services.

Challenges

Active military operations in the North Gaza governorate and lack of access have prevented the conduct of the second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the area. The Cluster estimates that between 6,800 and 13,700 children across northern Gaza may have been missed in the second round of the polio vaccination campaign.
Due to ongoing hostilities, access to the Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesian hospitals in North Gaza remains restricted; the three facilities are barely managing to continue providing health services amid major supply shortages and lack of fuel.
Efforts to scale up health services in the Gaza governorate are hampered by unpredictable access between the areas north and south of Wadi Gaza.

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Nutrition

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Response

The findings of a recent UNICEF survey on dietary diversity among children and pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBW) in Gaza highlights the severe impact on nutrition of shrinking humanitarian aid and commercial truck entries into the Strip. The data collected between 18 and 24 October reveals a significant decline in dietary diversity. Ninety-five (95) per cent of parents with children aged 6 to 23 months reported that their children had consumed only two or fewer types of food the day prior to the survey. This is compared with 90 per cent in September, 79 per cent in July, and 94 per cent in May when nearly the entire population in Rafah was displaced to Deir al Balah and Khan Younis.
Throughout the second round of the polio vaccination campaign, UNICEF facilitated the distribution of Vitamin A supplements to address the growing scarcity of Vitamin A-rich foods in the Gaza Strip. Accordingly, between 10 October and 5 November, 448,425 children aged between two and ten years, 92.4 per cent of the target, received Vitamin A supplements.
In Gaza city, nutrition services continue to be scaled up in response to increasing displacement from North Gaza. Juzoor for Health and Development, a local NGO, opened a new medical point and plans to open three additional points while UNRWA is in the process of re-opening one health center that had been closed since October 2023.
WFP and its partners are scaling up the Blanket Supplementary Feeding Programme (BSFP), with 102,000 children and 45,000 PBW reached in October 2024 across the Strip. They also successfully resumed the BSFP in the areas of An Nuseirat and Al Maghazi refugee camps in Deir al Balah during the second half of October, following months of restricted access by Israeli authorities.
During the reporting period, UNICEF’s partners distributed Lipid-based Nutrient Supplements (LNS-SQ) to 24,200 children across the Gaza Strip.
In October, 4,107 children were admitted for outpatient treatment of acute malnutrition. Between July and October, more than 18,800 children were admitted for outpatient treatment of acute malnutrition, or 65 per cent of the total number of children admitted for treatment since the beginning of 2024 (29,054), reflecting a marked increase in cases in recent months.

Challenges

In North Gaza, due to the escalation of hostilities, evacuation orders and tightened siege, Nutrition Cluster partners had to stop all their activities, including the treatment of acutely malnourished children and supplementary feeding for children and PBW. The massive displacement of people from North Gaza to Gaza city has caused delays in detecting and initiating treatment for malnutrition cases and compromised required follow ups for children already under treatment. 
The drastic reduction of commercial trucks entering the Gaza Strip has not only driven commodity prices up and threatened market stability but also worsened the nutritional status of vulnerable children and women, who for months have faced severely limited access to adequate food, water and hygiene products.
Shrinking humanitarian space and continued supply chain complications, including the inability to reliably pick up supplies from the Kerem Shalom crossing due to insecurity and the risk of looting, have prevented full coverage of the needs, despite the prepositioning of adequate quantities of supplies outside the Gaza Strip.

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Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 27 October - 9 November 2024

Period: 27 October - 9 November 2024

Health

Nutrition

Food Security