Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 5-18 January 2025

The delivery of psychotropic medications to people in Gaza, supported by the occupied Palestinian territory Humanitarian Fund. Photo by WHO

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Period: 5-18 January 2025

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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Food Security Sector (FSS)

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Response

As of 13 January, approximately 640,000 cooked meals prepared in 170 kitchens were distributed daily to families across the Strip. During this harsh wintertime, many families rely on one cooked meal from community kitchens as their main source of food intake of the day.
Only about 550 metric tonnes (MT) of flour could be distributed to approximately 110,000 people in the first half of January due to supply shortages, reaching some six per cent of the 1.7 million people estimated to be in central and southern Gaza. Each family, regardless of family size, received one 25-kilogramme bag of flour, as part of the emergency flour distribution. As of mid-January 2025, more than 210,000 MT of food commodities have been procured or are under procurement by FSS partners and need to be urgently brought into the Gaza Strip; this is equivalent to food rations for the whole population for more than six months.
As of 18 January, only five out of the 20 bakeries supported by WFP were operational across the Strip, all of them in the Gaza governorate. After being forced to operate at 50 per cent capacity due to critical fuel shortages between 11 and 15 January, these bakeries received new fuel on 15 January and have resumed operations at 100 per cent capacity as of 16 January. Bread delivery to selected shelters and community kitchens, which had been suspended, has also resumed. In central and southern Gaza, where all eight WFP-supported bakeries were closed due to flour shortages since 30 November, partners continued to prioritize household-level flour distribution, with each family receiving at least one 25-kg bag of wheat flour. Meanwhile, the seven WFP-supported bakeries in North Gaza and Rafah remained closed due to hostilities.
FSS partners have put in place measures, including free bread distribution alongside cooked meals at community kitchens and the contracting of retailer shops as bread selling points, to mitigate overcrowding and ensure safe access by families should bread production at WFP-subsidized commercial bakeries in central and southern Gaza resume. Such resumption requires at least 1,000 MT of flour to be available at a time and to be regularly replenished in the warehouses and for the price of flour on the local market to decrease. FSS partners, jointly with the Protection Cluster and the Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Network, are also working to put in place measures, such as crowd management and a safe distribution checklist, to strengthen safety and security during distribution processes.
On 15 January, FSS, in collaboration with the Health Cluster, delivered 150 food parcels to a small number of health workers, patients and their companions at the Indonesian Hospital, in North Gaza.
As part of preparations to scale up the food response during the ceasefire period, FSS is working to enhance distribution and storage capacities with back-up teams, including by identifying additional partners and distribution points to reach people across Gaza.

Challenges

Most parts of the North Gaza governorate have remained largely cut off from any proper assistance for more than three months.
The sector continues to advocate for the unfettered entry of agricultural supplies such as seed kits, organic fertilizers and nylon sheets for greenhouses, through humanitarian and private sector supply chains. Resuming agricultural activities, including small-scale home, community and school gardening, is key to enhancing diet diversity and reducing food gaps in Gaza.
Lack of access to sufficient fuel supplies in Gaza governorate continued to hinder response activities. FSS and the Shelter Cluster continue to advocate for the entry of cooking gas into areas north of Wadi Gaza, where there have been no such entries for 15 consecutive months, forcing people to rely on burning waste.

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Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

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Response

Between 5 and 17 January, the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) and Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) reported that a daily average of 85,325 cubic metres of water was produced across the Gaza Strip; this includes 58,791 cubic metres of drinking water produced from the two operational seawater desalination plants or supplied through the three Mekorot lines and 26,535 cubic metres produced by municipal ground water wells.
The WASH Cluster has finalized components of the inter-sectoral ceasefire operational plan. This will guid the WASH response once the ceasefire comes into effect.
During the reporting period, the Hygiene Promotion Working Group, comprised of representatives of 12-15 WASH partners, developed a new technical note that aims to provide comprehensive guidance to WASH partners and response actors on developing, planning, and implementing interventions aimed at enhancing access to hygiene items and WASH Non-Food Items (NFI).
As of early 2025, the WASH Cluster completed the first round of mapping partners, launched the membership application process for 2025, and finalized the WASH Cluster Partners’ Profile that provides detailed information about the area of focus of each WASH partner. In 2024, the Cluster had 77 partner organizations as full members, support members or observers.

Challenges

Between 11 and 17 December, WASH Cluster partners received only 12 per cent (an average of 8,685 litres of fuel per day) of the minimum daily requirement of 70,000 litres of fuel to meet critical WASH and public health needs, including water production and distribution, sewage management, repair works and solid waste management; these quantities are exclusive to Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, while governorates north of Wadi Gaza have not received any fuel since early December 2024, rendering almost all WASH facilities in the area inoperable.
As the ceasefire implementation commences, many people are expected to return to areas of origin and face insufficient access to WASH services, including water supply and distribution, particularly in the North Gaza and Rafah governorates. For instance, initial reports indicate that out of 30 main water wells in Rafah, 15 are fully destroyed and the other 15 require extensive rehabilitation, while the UAE cross-border desalination plant is not operational due to damage to the supply pipeline and proximity to the Philadelphi corridor, leaving returning populations with little or no access to water. Plans are underway to redirect some of the water treated via the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant in Khan Younis to Rafah through a water conveyor and water filling point, as well as to undertake technical assessments and implement immediate actions to restart WASH services to the best extent possible in all critically underserved areas.

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Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 5-18 January 2025

Period: 5-18 January 2025

Food Security Sector (FSS)

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

Health