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Current Requirements (US$)$4.06 billion
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Current People Hyper Prioritized3 million
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Current Hyper Prioritized Requirements$4.06 billion
GHO estimates at launch (8 December 2025)
Crisis overview
For more than 2 years, Gazans have experienced death, destruction, displacement, and dehumanization, stripped of their sense of place and dignity, forced to witness family members be killed, burned and buried alive.
The entire population of Gaza, estimated at 2.1 million people, requires humanitarian assistance. With famine confirmed in the Gaza governorate in August through the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, notwithstanding some recent improvements, concerns persist regarding the protracted and profound nature of the food security and nutrition crisis in Gaza, the collapse of food security and nutrition systems, and near-total destruction of the local food production system. Children have been profoundly affected; acute malnutrition among children under five more than doubled in August 2025 compared to September 2024, with 132,000 expected to suffer through mid-2026.
The health system is stretched far beyond capacity: sixty-two percent of hospitals were non-functional while the remaining facilities were overwhelmed or operating without adequate staff, fuel, or medical supplies. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have sustained life-changing injuries, one in four are children, and more than 5,000 have undergone amputations.
Insufficient access to water and horrific sanitation conditions are exacerbating public health issues. As of August, 57 per cent of households surveyed were exposed to sewage or fecal matter within 10 meters of their homes, and 42 per cent lived near uncollected waste, leaving an estimated 900,000 people surrounded by accumulated garbage in residential areas.
Northern Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Special Surgery Building of Al-Shifa Hospital stands gutted and blackened, its façade riddled with blast damage and debris from months of intense hostilities, reflecting the scale of destruction to critical infrastructure.
OCHA/Olga CherevkoFollowing repeated displacement, loss of essential shelter items and the destruction of 92 per cent of housing units, as of October 2025, an estimated 1.5 million people need emergency shelter supplies. Most displaced households live in substandard conditions and lack adequate protection, privacy, and materials to ensure safety and dignity.
At the same time, the West Bank continues to witness the most sustained and destructive operations in two decades, particularly in the northern West Bank refugee camps (Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams). Since January 2025, these operations have caused mass casualties, widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, and large-scale displacement. Escalating Israeli settler violence, with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli forces, has worsened the coercive environment in the occupied West Bank, resulting in casualties, damage to property, and the forcible displacement of Palestinian families including entire communities. The result is that 1.5 million people require humanitarian assistance because of escalating violence, displacement, and restrictions that are eroding civilian life and shrinking humanitarian space.
Response priorities and financial requirements for 2026
The UN and partners estimate that $4.06 billion is required to deliver life-saving assistance and protection interventions to 3 million people affected by the ongoing crisis across OPT. The 2026 Flash Appeal outlines the actions required to address acute humanitarian needs through the delivery of emergency supplies and the provision of critical services, including protection. Early recovery activities are included when they represent the most cost-effective and efficient means of delivering humanitarian assistance, or when they are essential to enabling such assistance. This includes debris clearance and the removal and disposal of explosive ordnance within the parameters defined by the scope and boundaries of the plan at sectorial level.
Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Overloaded trucks transport families and their belongings along Gaza’s coast as people continue to flee intensified airstrikes amid severe limits on humanitarian access.
OCHA/Olga CherevkoThe humanitarian system continues to work with development actors to support the shift from early recovery to longer-term recovery, ensuring coherence between immediate response and future planning. Recovery and reconstruction will be integrated into upcoming development-led processes. Delivery of the response depends on a conducive operating environment. Despite the announcement of a ceasefire on 10 October, humanitarian actors continue to face severe access restrictions, bureaucratic impediments, and anti-UN rhetoric, which collectively constrain the ability to operate at scale and in line with humanitarian principles.
Occupied Palestinian Territory
2025 in review: Response highlights and consequences of inaction
Response highlights
In 2025, humanitarian actors across Gaza and the West Bank continued delivering life-saving assistance to millions despite worsening conditions amid bureaucratic and administrative impediments, access restrictions, extreme insecurity, severe funding shortages, and a shrinking operational space.
Multipurpose Cash Assistance
In 2025, 305,000 households in Gaza received at least one Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) installment, while in the northern West Bank, 22,000 MPCA installments reached 10,200 vulnerable families.
Health
Health partners coordinated the evacuation of 2,955 patients and 5,010 companions, operating 228 service points across Gaza and providing 14.5 million consultations there and 107,000 in the West Bank. In Gaza, nearly 600,000 children were vaccinated in each of three rounds of the Polio campaign in 2025, representing between 94 and 100 per cent of targets.
Sanitation
Across OPT, approximately 1.1 million people were reached with appropriate sanitation services.
Food
During periods of improved access, partners delivered up to one million meals daily in Gaza.
Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Amid widespread destruction in Gaza City, a child transports jugs in search of scarce fuel and water as access constraints deepen humanitarian needs.
OCHA/Olga CherevkoConsequences of funding cuts
Access constraints and challenges
Access restrictions, administrative and bureaucratic impediments, and security were the main factors inhibiting appropriately scaled humanitarian assistance.
Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Two girls smile warmly as they walk through their neighborhood, their joy shining through despite the surrounding destruction.
OCHA/Charlotte CansDigital Lifelines in Gaza: How E-Wallets Revolutionized Humanitarian Cash Assistance Amid Banking Collapse
With no cash allowed to enter or exit and banks unable to dispense physical notes, the Cash Working Group (CWG) rapidly expanded digital cash assistance, ensuring families could still access essentials despite banks and ATMs being nonfunctional. Gaza’s communities and humanitarian partners turned severe constraints into innovation.
By late 2025, digital e-wallets had become a primary delivery channel, covering more than 60 percent of humanitarian cash transfers and redeemed by roughly 78 percent of recipients. About 69 percent of surveyed beneficiaries reported using assistance exclusively through digital transactions, while vendor acceptance of e-wallet payments increased from 30 percent in May to over 50 percent by September. CWG partners—including WFP, UNICEF, ACF Spain, and Mercy Corps—disbursed funds directly to e-wallets, supported by helpdesks and call centers handling thousands of activation and redemption requests each month.
“Even when there was no cash in the banks, my e-wallet worked—I could still buy milk for my children,” shared a UNICEF beneficiary in June 2025.
By August, 78–84 percent of beneficiaries preferred unrestricted digital cash over other aid forms. Since October 2023, roughly 85 percent of Gaza’s population has received cash assistance at least once. Digital transfers have become a lifeline for families, sustaining local markets, vendors, and financial inclusion in one of the world’s most challenging humanitarian environments.