Humanitarian Needs and Response Update | 26 March - 01 April 2024

UN and PRCS teams preparing for the evacuation of babies from Al Shifa Hospital. November 2023. Photo:OCHA

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Period: 26 March - 01 April 2024

The information below is provided on a weekly basis by Clusters and select Technical Working Groups operating in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT). It is updated throughout the week to reflect new content.

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Nutrition

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Needs

An intact supply pipeline of both preventative nutrition commodities (high-energy biscuits, lipid-based nutrient supplements, and micronutrient supplements) and ready-to-eat therapeutic food (RUTF), particularly for some 346,000 children under the age of five, who are at greatest risk of malnutrition, and preventable mortality children as well as over 160,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBW). At risk children include about 135,000 children under the age of two who are highly vulnerable to severe acute malnutrition (SAM).
Immediate humanitarian access to address the accelerating increase in acute malnutrition. Some 50,400 children under the age of five are estimated to be acutely malnourished in the northern areas, with an alarming 31 per cent of children under the age of two suffering from severe wasting.
Continued active identification of cases to ensure timely detection, referral, and treatment of acutely malnourishment children.
Expand the Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP) targeting children with acute malnutrition, to ensure greater proximity of nutrition treatment services to the affected population.
Strengthen partners' capacity to provide nutrition-in-emergency services, including community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM), and infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices in emergencies.
Enhance the mapping of service coverage as well as monitoring and reporting systems, to identify gaps and ensure effective coordination and a streamlined nutritional response.

Response

Since mid-January, a total of 31,629 children aged 6-59 months have undergone Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) screenings, of whom 1,700 have been diagnosed with Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) and 437 with SAM. These children are currently receiving treatment.
UNRWA has extended its MUAC screening at shelters in Deir al Balah, and work continues to expand the screening also to the Al-Mawasi area and at shelters in Khan Younis. Moreover, International Medical Corps (IMC) has deployed 15 community nutrition volunteers to provide screening and referral services.
The stabilization center established at the IMC field hospital in Rafah is now operational with a six-bed capacity, and one child has already been admitted into the facility. IMC has also trained staff at the hospital to manage SAM cases with complications.
WFP has distributed a 15-day allocation of lipid-based nutrient supplements (195,825 packs) to 7,353 PBW and children under the age of five in informal public shelters, makeshift shelters, and among host communities in Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah. A total of 6,386 caregivers, including PBW, have also received sensitization sessions on IYCF practices.
UNICEF is dispatching 1,250 cartons of RUTF that will contribute to the treatment of children diagnosed with acute malnutrition for at least one month. Beyond distribution in the southern governorates, options are being explored to transport supplies also to northern Gaza, where humanitarian access is extremely limited.
UNICEF has facilitated the procurement of specialized milk for children with various medical conditions.
Between 26 March and 1 April, eight NGO health workers were trained in the early identification and treatment of acutely malnourished cases, to launch a program for the management of wasting at a new field hospital near Rafah. Thus far, a total of 65 health workers have been trained on simplified approaches to the management of wasting, 18 on the management of SAM with complications, and 32 community volunteers/community engagement workers have been trained on MUAC screening and IYCF practices.

Challenges

Limited humanitarian access throughout Gaza, particularly in the northern areas, continues to exacerbate the catastrophic levels of food insecurity already faced by the population and to prevent the urgent delivery of life-saving nutrition commodities. This, compounded by deteriorating health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, is resulting in an increasing number of acutely malnourished children.
Continued displacement undermines the effective provision of nutrition services.
Extreme fear and stress, malnutrition, and complex living conditions due to the protracted hostilities have resulted in mothers being unable to breastfeed their newborn babies.

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Protection

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Needs

Provide specialized counselling and psychosocial support for children, to address severe levels of trauma, and scale up case management services.
Strengthen life-saving specialized services for survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
Increase the number of Protection and GBV experts in Gaza, support GBV frontline responders affected by the conflict, and provide them with the required logistical support to be able to access GBV survivors.
Enhance the distribution of menstrual hygiene supplies, clothing and shoes for children, as well as cash and voucher assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in formal and informal shelters and with host families.
Provide Victim Assistance (VA) for survivors of shelling and explosive ordnance-related accidents.
Urgently undertake large-scale assessments to ascertain the extent of Explosive Ordnance (EO) contamination and increase the deployment of Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) operators, the conduct of Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE) sessions, and the delivery of Conflict Preparedness and Protection (CPP) messages tailored to different population groups and needs. EORE and CPP training for humanitarian workers also needs to be intensified.

Response

To date, a total of 329,000 children and 56,000 caregivers have been reached through distribution of clothes and shoes, provision of mental health and psychosocial support, and awareness raising messages on EO risks.
Between 26 March and 1 April, GBV partners provided psychosocial support to 1,713 women, girls and GBV survivors, conducted 45 protection mitigation sessions, and delivered 1,470 dignity and menstrual hygiene management (MHM) kits. GBV partners are currently operating three safe spaces in southern Gaza and establishing an area-based committee to support the management of shelters.
Mine Action (MA) partners continue to progressively scale-up their activities aimed at addressing EO challenges in Gaza and streamline mine action in the work of other humanitarian clusters.

Challenges

Fuel shortages limit staff mobility, prevent the implementation of a comprehensive case management response, and endanger the safe operation of temporary shelters for unaccompanied children. Protracted denials of fuel requests have been severely impacting the provision of services.
Due to access constraints, partners are facing difficulties in bringing recreational kits into Gaza to implement psychosocial support activities for children.
Despite the high caseload of women and girls in critical need of health and psychosocial services and dignity kits, partners continue to face logistical challenges preventing the scaling-up of support. Confidential places where case management activities may take place are also limited.
Mine action partners continue to report administrative hurdles, such as registration challenges for organizational entities and delayed provision of visas, interrupting the deployment of some EOD specialists. Restrictions on the entry into Gaza of essential humanitarian mine action supplies also continue to affect mine action response.
Alongside limitations to humanitarian access in Gaza, damage to key civilian infrastructure has resulted in widespread communication blackouts and connectivity challenges, hampering coordination of the overall protection response.