UNRWA Situation Report #203 on the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem [EN/AR]

All information updated for 24 December 2025 - 6 January 2026 [1]
Days 807 - 820 since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip

Highlights

Agency-wide

• On 29 December 2025, Israeli parliament passed new legislation seeking to further impede UNRWA’s ability to operate and to carry out its mandated activities. The legislation cuts off water, electricity, fuel, and communications from UNRWA facilities and grants the government of Israel authority to expropriate UN properties in East Jerusalem, including UNRWA’s headquarters and its main vocational training centre. Furthermore, the bill explicitly excludes UNRWA from Israeli law enacting Israel’s obligations under the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. Emphasizing that UNRWA is an integral part of the United Nations, the Secretary-General noted Israel’s obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and recalled the advisory opinion issued on 22 October 2025 by the International Court of Justice, reiterating Israel’s obligation to ensure full respect for the privileges and immunities accorded to the United Nations, including UNRWA and its personnel, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. UNRWA’s Commissioner-General also condemned this measure as a “clear violation of the State of Israel’s obligations under international law”.

The Gaza Strip

• On 30 December, the Israeli authorities announced a plan to suspend the operation of multiple international NGOs. In a statement, the Humanitarian Country Team in the oPt, representing UN agencies, and over 200 local and international humanitarian partners, urged Israeli authorities to reconsider the announcement, stressing that international NGOs are essential for life-saving aid delivery. UNRWA’s Commissioner-General also condemned the new Israeli measures, saying they “were part of a troubling pattern of disregard for international humanitarian law and increasing impediments to aid operations".
• As reported by OCHA, recent rainstorms since 26 December have triggered flash flooding, particularly affecting people living in low-lying areas, coastal zones. Seawater has once again inundated tents housing displaced families, including in the Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis, rendering many shelters uninhabitable. Displaced families remain inside damaged structures due to the lack of alternative shelter. In UNRWA’s collective emergency shelters, over 3,400 people have been affected, with almost 900 tents impacted.
• The Israeli military remains deployed in more than half of the Gaza Strip, beyond the so-called “Yellow Line,” which remains largely unmarked on the ground and where access to humanitarian facilities and assets, public infrastructure and agricultural land remain severely restricted or prohibited. Airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire continued to be reported across the Gaza Strip, with most incidents occurring in the vicinity of the “Yellow Line,” resulting in casualties. Over the reporting period, the “Yellow Line” was pushed westwards in Gaza City, reflecting a broader pattern observed in several parts of the Gaza Strip and further constraining access to UNRWA installations.
• Fuel delivery into Gaza has been limited and inconsistent during the reporting period, directly and significantly affecting UNRWA’s operations and the overall humanitarian response. UNRWA is a direct service provider, needing fuel to operate generators across a large number of shelters, and health clinics among others. Over the reporting period, UNRWA had to ration available fuel, prioritising consumption to sustain life-saving activities.

The West Bank including East Jerusalem

• Further demolitions took place inside Nur Shams Camp following the rejection by the Israeli Supreme Court on 24 December of a legal petition to halt the execution of a demolition order for 25 buildings. The demolitions occurred simultaneously with a new cash-for-rent distribution by UNRWA to support households forcibly displaced from Nur Shams, Tulkarm, and Jenin camps in the northern West Bank.

Key points

The Gaza Strip

Fatalities and injuries

• Between 7 October 2023 and 29 December 2025, according to the MoH in Gaza, as stated by OCHA, 71,266 Palestinians were reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip and another 171,222, injured. Since the ceasefire, 414 Palestinians have been killed, 1,145 injured and 680 bodies have been retrieved from under the rubble, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH).
• UNRWA has recorded 382 colleagues killed in Gaza since the start of the conflict (309 UNRWA personnel, in addition to 73 persons who were supporting UNRWA activities[2]), as of 5 January 2026.

Health crisis

• Only half of hospitals and less than half of primary healthcare centres are currently partially functional and face shortages of essential medical equipment and supplies. Only four out of the 22 UNRWA health clinics operational before the war are currently operating, in addition to four temporary health centres.
• According to the latest Gaza Health Cluster Bulletin, the most common morbidities remain Acute Watery Diarrheal and Acute Respiratory Tract Infections.

Education crisis

• According to the Education Cluster, extensive damage to school infrastructure has forced a reliance on temporary learning spaces (TLS), with efforts ongoing to expand learning services. Education Cluster partners (including UNRWA), with support from 5,180 teachers, are currently serving about 220,950 students in TLS, or about 34 per cent of school-aged children in Gaza.

Displacement, Site management

• UNRWA continues to monitor the movement of displaced persons and displacement sites. As of 21 December, 79,000 displaced people were estimated to be living in UNRWA collective emergency shelters and the surrounding areas, including in 85 displacement sites managed by the Agency.
• Currently, 117 UNRWA facilities are located within the Israeli militarised zone behind the so-called “Yellow Line” and in areas where access is subject to Israeli approval/coordination.

Operational implications and humanitarian response

• Around 11,500 Palestinian UNRWA personnel continue to provide services and assistance to Gaza’s entire population in need. In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, UNRWA continues to play a central role with over 4,000 UNRWA Palestinian personnel providing education, health, and other services to Palestine Refugees.
• All UNRWA international staff are prevented from entering the occupied Palestinian territory (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem). This follows the implementation of laws passed by the Israeli parliament on 28 October 2024[3] that purport to prohibit UNRWA’s operations in areas that Israel considers its sovereign territory, including occupied East Jerusalem, and seek to bar any contact by Israeli officials with UNRWA. The Israeli Authorities have not granted the Agency’s international staff visas or permits to enter the occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza, since the end of January 2025.
• The Israeli Authorities have since March 2025 been blocking UNRWA from directly bringing humanitarian personnel and aid into the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, pre-positioned outside Gaza, UNRWA has enough food parcels, flour, and shelter supplies for hundreds of thousands of people.

According to OCHA, between 7 October 2023 and 1 January 2026, 1,046 Palestinians – at least 229 of them children – were killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

• Late on 24 December, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition to halt the demolition of some 25 buildings inside Nur Shams Camp in the northern West Bank. The demolitions subsequently commenced on 31 December. The camp, alongside Tulkarm and Jenin camps, has been completely emptied of residents for nearly a year because of the Israeli forces’ “Iron Wall” operation, which started in January 2025. The Director of UNRWA Affairs in the West Bank released a statement condemning these further demolitions as a violation of international law.
• On 29 December, the Israeli parliament passed an amendment to anti-UNRWA laws cutting off water, electricity, fuel, and communications from UNRWA and granting the Israeli government authority to expropriate UN property in East Jerusalem, including both the UNRWA West Bank Field Office compound in Sheikh Jarrah and the Kalandia Training Centre. The UNRWA Commissioner-General described the vote as “a direct affront to the mandate granted to the Agency by the UN General Assembly.”
• During the final week of December, UNRWA distributed cash-for-rent assistance to more than 1,600 forcibly displaced families from Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams camps. Many households in the northern West Bank have experienced repeated displacement over recent years, significantly increasing their vulnerability and protection risks.
• On 31 December, the Israeli Civil Administration granted preliminary approval for the construction of 126 housing units in the re-established Israeli settlement of Sa Nur in the northern West Bank. Sa Nur is among the settlements previously dismantled as part of the 2005 Disengagement Plan. This comes against the backdrop of an earlier announcement by the Israeli government in December establishing or formalising 19 Israeli settlements in the West Bank.