Emergency Interventions in Gaza 2021

The period between 10-21 May 2021 witnessed a new Israeli military assault on Gaza. According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), up to the 27th May, 256 Palestinians, including 66 children and 40 women were killed.  Almost 2,000 Palestinians were injured, including over 600 children and 400 women, some of whom sustained severe injury.

At the height of the escalation, 113,000 displaced people sought shelter and protection in schools and hosting communities. This has decreased to around 8,500 people, primarily those whose houses were destroyed or so badly damaged as to be uninhabitable. According to local authorities, over 2,000 housing units were totally destroyed or severely damaged.

An estimated 15,000 housing units sustained some degree of damage, as did multiple water and sanitation facilities and infrastructure, 58 education / school facilities, nine hospitals and 19 primary healthcare centres, as well as the damage to dozens of small businesses that have been forced to close down as result. The damage has exacerbated Gaza’s chronic infrastructure and power deficits, resulting in a reduction of clean water and sewage treatment, and daily power cuts of 18-20 hours, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Municipal work teams and utility providers removed rubble, and continue to work to repair water, sewage, and electricity networks.

Gaza’s health system, already overwhelmed by chronic drug shortages, inadequate equipment and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, had to additionally meet the needs of those injured during the hostilities.