Attachments
Summary of the crisis
The current public health situation analysis (PHSA) concerns the population living within the Gaza Strip and affected by the acute emergency resulting from large-scale military operations by Israel and Hamas. The start date of the current acute emergency is 7 October 2023. The crisis combines multiple typologies, including armed conflict, forced displacement and, depending on the evolution of humanitarian assistance, slow-onset food insecurity. The near-complete blockade of humanitarian and other supply chains, combined with large numbers of injury casualties including among frontline health workers, are resulting in severe disruptions to the health system and the virtual collapse of several facilities and health service components. The population affected as of the time of writing is as follows (Table 1):
Priority health problems and their possible evolution
Table 2 summarises the current analysis of the magnitude (in terms of predicted excess morbidity and mortality) of different health problems affecting the crisis-affected population, grouped into major disease groups. Changes in the projected magnitude of these problems are also shown; these do not incorporate the possible mitigating impact of an improved humanitarian health response, and instead assume that the level of humanitarian assistance remains broadly the same as present, i.e. insufficient, intermittent deliveries of essential supplies through the Rafah crossing. We have also assumed that the war will protract for at least 6 months from the present time. Note that the World Health Organization has also issued a PHSA, using a somewhat different template, to which we refer interested readers [4].