<\/p>\n
13 August 2026<\/p>\n
Since the outbreak of hostilities on 7 October 2023, the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip has experienced systemic collapse, severely undermining its capacity to meet the basic health needs of the civilian population. For decades, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA has been a cornerstone of healthcare provision in the Gaza Strip, serving as the largest provider of primary healthcare for Palestine Refugees who make up two-thirds of Gaza\u2019s population. Like the rest of the sector, the Agency\u2019s own health services have also been repeatedly affected by hostilities and operational constraints.<\/p>\n
Two years of hostilities marked by the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, repeated mass displacement, restrictions on humanitarian access, alarming levels of civilian casualties and injuries, and chronic shortages of essential medicines, medical supplies, and fuel, have transformed the Gaza Strip into a protracted public health crisis. The healthcare services in the Gaza Strip have been degraded at every level, from primary healthcare and specialist treatment to disease surveillance, maternal care, emergency response, and medical referral systems, while the underlying determinants of health, including access to safe water, sanitation, adequate nutrition and shelter, have simultaneously deteriorated. Despite the ceasefire, no health facility in the Gaza Strip has been rehabilitated to full functionality, while the healthcare system remains severely strained by shortages of personnel, medicines, medical supplies, and fuel.<\/p>\n
The health crisis in the Gaza Strip reflects the cumulative impact of overlapping humanitarian, environmental, and public health emergencies and cannot be understood in isolation from the broader humanitarian context. Overcrowding, repeated displacement, food insecurity, environmental contamination, the collapse of water and sanitation systems, the destruction of homes and public infrastructure, shrinking humanitarian space, movement restrictions, and severe limitations on humanitarian operations have accelerated the spread of communicable diseases, increased acute malnutrition, disrupted the management of chronic illnesses, and severely undermined maternal, newborn, and child health. These same factors have fundamentally eroded both the availability of healthcare services and people\u2032s ability to access them. At the same time, ongoing restrictions on humanitarian access continue to impede the delivery of life-saving assistance and the restoration of essential health services. As a result, the presence of a health facility no longer guarantees that services are operational, adequately supplied, safely accessible, or capable of providing care at pre-conflict levels.<\/p>\n
While this crisis affects the entire civilian population, women and girls, children, older persons, persons with disabilities, and individuals living with chronic diseases face disproportionate risks arising from pre-existing vulnerabilities, heightened exposure to harm, and additional barriers to accessing healthcare. Otherwise manageable medical conditions have been transformed into life-threatening emergencies, while the risk of preventable illness, disability, and death has increased.<\/p>\n
Despite these extraordinary constraints, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA has continued to deliver essential health services across the Gaza Strip by adapting its operating model, expanding mobile medical teams, establishing temporary health facilities, maintaining primary healthcare services where possible, and introducing innovative approaches such as centralised telemedicine. These efforts have enabled millions of consultations to continue throughout the conflict. However, much more is needed. More broadly, humanitarian agencies cannot compensate for the collapse of an entire health system, especially while operating under severe restrictions on humanitarian access, personnel movement, and the entry of essential relief supplies.<\/p>\n
The findings presented in this report raise profound concerns regarding the realisation of the right to health in the Gaza Strip. International human rights law recognises the right of every person to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, while international humanitarian law requires parties to an armed conflict to respect and protect medical personnel and facilities and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance. The conditions documented throughout this report, including attacks on healthcare facilities, ambulances, and health personnel, severe shortages of medicines and fuel, restrictions on humanitarian access, and the erosion of the underlying determinants of health, are inconsistent with the standards required under international law.<\/p>\n
The report concludes that urgent and sustained action is required to prevent further loss of life and to restore the right to health in the Gaza Strip. Addressing the healthcare crisis in the Gaza Strip will not only require rebuilding hospitals and other healthcare infrastructure. It will also depend on restoring the broader public health environment, ensuring sustained humanitarian access, strengthening disease surveillance, rehabilitating water and sanitation systems, expanding medical referral pathways, restoring supply chains for essential medicines and equipment, supporting frontline health workers, and prioritising population groups facing the greatest protection risks. Without sustained action based on long-term recovery, the health consequences of the current crisis are likely to endure long after hostilities cease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
13 August 2026 Executive summary: Since the outbreak of hostilities on 7 October 2023, the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip has experienced systemic collapse, severely undermining its capacity to meet the basic health needs of the civilian population. For decades, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA has been a cornerstone of healthcare provision in the Gaza Strip, serving […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1323],"document-source":[1817],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2517,2005,2533,6869,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-319832","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-report","document-source-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-for-palestine-refugees-in-the-near-east-unrwa","document-subject-access-and-movement","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-hospitals","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/319832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/319832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":319844,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/319832\/revisions\/319844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=319832"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=319832"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=319832"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=319832"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=319832"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=319832"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=319832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}