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UNRWA has released its 2024 Health Report, highlighting the immense toll on Palestine Refugees and the extraordinary dedication of UNRWA health staff working under some of the most dangerous and difficult conditions in the Agency’s history.
Nineteen months into the Gaza war, UNRWA health teams keep providing lifesaving services amid bombardment, displacement, and the collapse of basic and civilian infrastructure. UNRWA recently surpassed the gruesome milestone of 300 staff members killed in the Gaza Strip, including 13 health workers. Despite the mass destruction, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare staff remained committed to their patients, often risking their lives to reach them.
Amid the challenges in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA continues to provide critical health services across its five fields of operation. In 2024, UNRWA provided healthcare to more than 4.7 million Palestine Refugees across the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, excluding the Gaza Strip. Of these, over 200,000 patients received treatment for non-communicable diseases, more than 200,000 children under the age of five got child health services, and over 70,000 pregnant women delivered safely thanks to UNRWA support.
“This report honours the dedication and courage of our frontline teams and of the Palestine Refugees’ community they serve,” said Dr Akihiro Seita, UNRWA’s Director of Health. “Our staff continue to provide critical care, often without rest, and sometimes without the most basic resources.”
Before the war in Gaza started in October 2023, medical consultations averaged up to 15,000 per day across 22 health centres. By the end of 2024, with only seven to nine UNRWA health centres still functioning in the Gaza Strip, daily consultations had increased to nearly 18,000. To meet the unprecedented needs, UNRWA scaled up its emergency response, deploying 97 mobile medical teams across 53 different locations and coordinating vital shipments of medicine and supplies.
“We had to adapt and reinvent our healthcare model," Dr Seita explained. "We provided care where it was most needed, in shelters and open spaces, by using mobile units, temporary medical points, and working around the clock to provide healthcare to vulnerable people who are cut off from everything.”
While needs soared in Gaza, the Agency also faced growing restrictions in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where curfews, road closures, other measures, and operations by Israeli forces made access to care increasingly difficult.
UNRWA’s priorities remain maternal and child health, preventing and managing non-communicable and communicable diseases, and promoting dignity and equity in healthcare delivery.
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Notes to Editors
The Agency’s 2024 report provides data and analysis from all five fields of UNRWA operations, based on a variety of health indicators. It gives a sobering but essential account of how war, displacement, and extended occupation affect the access to healthcare of Palestine Refugees.
Background Information:
UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency’s area of operations pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.
UNRWA operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, The Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 conflict continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on.
UNRWA helps Palestine Refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.
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