Highlights
Since April 2017, Gaza has experienced power shortages, and the Gaza Power Plant (GPP) shut down completely after exhausting its fuel reserves causing an energy crisis. This has had a direct impact on the delivery of services, including health, water, sanitation, and education.
UNICEF strengthened the emergency preparedness through establishing two Designated Emergency Shelters (DES) in four targeted schools in Gaza constructing needed WASH facilities in coordination with the MoEHE. The WASH facilities are gender sensitive and address the needs of women and girls in terms of suitability, infrastructure and security.
UNICEF continued to provide emergency health care supplies, including neonatal lifesaving equipment to the Ministry of Health and its partner NECC, in Gaza. Since January, a total of 1552 children were provided with life-saving neonatal services.
Child Protection issues continue to be of concern, as a total of 1,022 incidents of grave violations against children were monitored and documented in the first quarter of 2017, affecting 12,945 children in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This represents an increase in the number of affected children compared with the last quarter of 2016 when 1,305 incidents were documented, affecting 10,831 children.
The situation in oPt remains volatile. In East Jerusalem, arrests and detentions of children remain high with 182 documented cases in the second quarter of 2017 compared with 136 children arrested in the first quarter. Since January, UNICEF supported 83 percent of arrested and detained children in East Jerusalem with legal counselling services through local partners.
Children in Area C, in particular H2, face severe protection challenges. Since January, UNICEF through its partners the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine (EAPPI) and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), ensured that a total 8,537 (8123 children and 414 teachers) benefitted from the provision of protective presence (i.e. international volunteers accompanying children to-and-from school due to harassment and violence at checkpoints and when crossing settlements).
A primary challenge in the oPt in 2017 has been the funding situation, negatively affecting the implementation of activities. Progress towards the cluster objectives has also been limited due to a lack of funds for humanitarian purposes.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs
The main drivers of humanitarian action in the State of Palestine (SoP) are directly linked to the impact of the confrontations between civilians and security forces, and the deteriorating humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip. The three major escalations of hostilities in Gaza over the past six years have amplified deprivations and exacerbated the vulnerability of the 1.8 million Palestinians living in the Strip. The current electricity crisis has undermined already precarious living conditions over the past decade severely impacting the daily lives of people, in particular the health and WASH sectors. It has a significant impact on the quality of health care delivered in Gaza and postponement of many elective surgeries, compounded with the protracted shortages of essential drugs and required medical disposables. At the writing of this report, the population of Gaza is receiving water for between 0-4 maximum hours of electricity per day. The over-extraction of water from the underlying coastal aquifer has resulted in the intrusion of seawater, hence 96.2 per cent of the groundwater in Gaza is unfit for human consumption – up from 90 per cent in 2012.The deterioration of the economy, combined with the degradation of basic infrastructure and services and recurrent conflicts have left most of Gaza’s two million inhabitants extremely vulnerable.
In the West Bank, humanitarian concerns include the separation wall, the condition of children in detention; communities at risk of evictions/forced transfers; and the many restrictions on building and access to services experienced by Palestinian communities in Area C. Children are exposed to high levels of harassment and violence both as a result of clashes and contact with Israeli Security Forces (ISF) and settler violence. Child arrests and detention frequently occur in East Jerusalem. High levels of demolitions severely impact livelihoods. During January 2017, OCHA recorded the demolition of 140 structures by the Israeli authorities, displacing around 240 Palestinians and affecting another 4,000. The number of structures demolished during the first month of the year was over 50 per cent higher than the monthly average of structures targeted in 2016 (91). Access to Education has been hampered by the restrictive planning regime applied in Area C, as over a third of the residential areas in Area C (189 out of 532) lack a primary school and children are forced to travel long distances, sometimes on foot, to reach the nearest school. Some children, including those in the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron city (H2), must cross a military checkpoint and/or are exposed to harassment on their way to/from school.
According to the 2017 Humanitarian Dashboard the humanitarian requirements total US$ 547million, of which only 30 per cent has been met.