Since early March, humanitarian partners have rapidly delivered urgent humanitarian assistance and protection for people facing critical needs stemming from the escalation:
Inside Iran, humanitarian organizations with pre-existing presence are responding as swiftly as possible, in accordance with requests received. The Iranian Red Crescent Society is supporting the Government response. Search and rescue operations and damage assessments are underway, medical teams have been deployed, and relief assistance is being distributed across all affected provinces. UN entities and NGOs are providing assistance and support to refugees, as well as specific assistance as requested to people most affected by hostilities, including support to healthcare.
In Lebanon, humanitarian partners, in coordination with national authorities, are providing life‑saving multi‑sector assistance, including a first round of cash assistance to 183,000 people, emergency shelter and non‑food items, food assistance, health services, and protection support. Partners are supporting hospitals, mobile medical units, and emergency trauma care. Protection actors, including GBV partners, are scaling up services through existing Women and Girls Safe Spaces and mobile teams. Efforts are ongoing to facilitate humanitarian access.
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, aid organizations are ramping up their readiness to provide assistance, protection and services for returnees. These include nutrition screening, safe water, vaccination, primary health care and child protection services at border points, reception centres and in areas of return.
In OPT, humanitarian partners have adapted operations across Gaza and the West Bank, in response to intensified hostilities and access restrictions. In Gaza, partners have implemented food assistance, water trucking, health services, temporary learning spaces, and shelter support, while activating contingency measures in hospitals and primary health‑care centres amid fuel shortages and repeated crossing closures.
In Syria, humanitarian actors have adjusted the response, prioritizing life‑saving assistance for returnees, newly displaced people and affected communities, while assisting cross‑border arrivals from Lebanon, amid airspace restrictions, heightened insecurity, and additional pressure on basic services.
Across the region and beyond, partners continue to respond to urgent needs which existed prior to the current crisis and risk being compounded by it. This includes response through the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan for the Syria crisis, which covers Jordan and Lebanon, as well as humanitarian responses inside Afghanistan, OPT, Syria and Yemen, each of which have Humanitarian Needs and Response Plans. Preparedness efforts are also ramped up. However, humanitarian action is constrained due to desperately low levels of funding.