Gaza’s health system continues to face significant challenges amid immense needs

31 October 2025

OCHA says that humanitarian partners continue their scale-up efforts despite reported Israeli airstrikes across the Strip. Some strikes reportedly occurred in the area close to the “Yellow Line” and resulted in casualties.

OCHA stresses that these military activities put civilians, including aid workers, at risk. OCHA reminds the Israeli military of its obligation to take constant care to spare them throughout all its military operations.

Since the start of the ceasefire, the World Health Organization (WHO) has delivered over 840 pallets of life-saving medical supplies into Gaza including insulin, assistive devices, essential medicines, cholera kits and surgical materials.

WHO also reported this week that its teams are working with partners providing nutrition services to develop specific nutrition guidelines for children aged 5-10, aiming to treat 2,500 children through the outpatient therapeutic programme and stabilization centres.

Despite these positive developments, Gaza’s health system continues to face significant challenges in addressing Gaza’s immense health needs, with only 34 per cent of health service points functional.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza (MoH), as of 7 October 2025, more than 1,700 health workers have been killed since the start of the war. This represents about seven per cent of the health workforce in the Gaza Strip prior to the war, which according to the MoH’s 2022 annual report stood at about 25,000 health workers.

On the education front, partners are expanding their interventions, where possible, to restore minimum teaching and learning conditions for over 630,000 school-aged children who have lost over two years of schooling. They have been supporting the rehabilitation of more than 90 classrooms in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, out of over 2,000 classrooms that require rehabilitation across the Gaza Strip as assessed by the Ministry of Education. However, restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities on the entry of educational and learning supplies continue to hinder the response.

On aid collection efforts, according to the UN 2720 Mechanism, the UN and our humanitarian partners have collected over 24,000 metric tons of aid from the crossings since the ceasefire came into effect.

More people in need have been able to access this critical aid which includes food, medicine and medical supplies, nutritional supplements and shelter materials, through the resumption of community- and household-based distributions and services.

Additionally, according to the UN 2720 Mechanism, there has been a significant reduction in the interception of supplies collected by the UN and its partners from Gaza’s crossings since the ceasefire took effect.

Between 10 and 28 October, five per cent of collected supplies were reportedly intercepted, compared with about 80 per cent between 19 May and 9 October.

OCHA expects this decline to continue as more humanitarian and commercial supplies are able to enter. For that to happen, all crossing points should be open and more UN agencies and organizations authorized to bring aid supplies into the Gaza Strip.