UNICEF in the State of Palestine – Escalation Humanitarian Situation Report No.19 (15 to 28 February 2024)

1 March 2024

Highlights

High levels of displacement and overcrowding in collective centers and scattered sites in the Gaza Strip continue with extremely challenging hygiene and sanitation conditions. On average, 340 individuals share one toilet, and 1,290 persons share one shower, as assessed by the WASH Cluster.
• The babies of 5,500 women who are due to give birth in the next month in the Gaza Strip are at risk of dying, as their mothers do not have access to prenatal or postnatal check-ups because of bombings and need to flee for safety. Anxiety is also leading to premature births, as reported by UNFPA.
• Over 90 per cent of children aged 6-23 months and pregnant, breastfeeding women face severe food poverty with access to two or fewer food groups per day.
• Over 1,326,000 people, including 670,000 children, obtained lifesaving clean water for drinking and domestic needs through UNICEF provision of 109,500 litres of fuel to accessible areas south of Wadi Gaza in the past two weeks.
• UNICEF delivered 52 Interagency Emergency Health Kits to serve 520,000 people and ten newborn kits (NBK) benefitting 8,700 newborns.
• UNICEF urgently assisted more than 24,500 pregnant and breastfeeding women with multi-purpose cash to support their critical needs including relocation to a presumably safer location, benefitting a total of 170,000 people.
• UNICEF has moved 32 trucks into the Gaza Strip from Egypt between 16 to 26 February, with healthcare equipment, medicines, tarpaulins for shelters, nutrient supplement paste for 2,000 babies for one month, diapers for 8,000 babies.
• In the West Bank, UNICEF continued to support the emergency response and delivered medical equipment: three transport incubators, 13 foetal monitors, three oxygen regulators, 16 centrifuges, and 15 fibre-optic laryngoscopes.