Latest news from Gaza 

• A ceasefire agreement was reached on 10 October 2025. Access for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza has started to increase, although more is urgently needed.
   
• Fuel supplies are currently severely limited and prices at record highs, leaving trucks able to deliver urgently needed clean water.
   
• Skin diseases are spreading rapidly in makeshift camps as people are forced to live without access to basic sanitation and hygiene facilities. 
   
• The UN-backed global hunger monitor, the IPC, confirmed in August last year that famine was a reality in parts of Gaza for the first time. Malnutrition remains a huge challenge.
   
• The UN says that 80% of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged since the conflict escalated.
   

What's happening in Gaza?

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza remains catastrophic. Stormy weather continues to cause flooding and misery for hundreds of thousands of people living in tents and makeshift shelters.

The latest escalation of conflict in the region has led to a severe lack of fuel. Generators needed in hospitals cannot run, and trucks able to deliver urgently needed clean water are in desperately short supply.

Ghada, who is based on Gaza and works for DEC charity Oxfam, explains the effects of the shortage.

“Without oil vehicles sit idle, the generators fall silent and communities are cut off from the services that keep them alive. Everyday we facing the consequences of this shortage”

Ghada Al Haddad, Communications Officer, Oxfam, Gaza

Families are also facing critical shortages of water for drinking and washing. Skin diseases are spreading rapidly as people are forced to live without access to basic sanitation and hygiene facilities.  As summer arrives, rats and lice are spreading through camps and making life in tents even more unbearable. 

DEC charities and their local partners have been working tirelessly to support families impacted by conflict in Gaza, but each day has brought new and unexpected challenges, but they have constantly adapted their work to deliver whatever aid they can. 
 

Aid access in Gaza

Aid access in Gaza remains limited and increased access for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza at scale is still desperately needed.

Working through their local partners, DEC charities are supporting people through cash assistance so people can afford to buy goods from local markets, food baskets, clean water, and medical care.

DEC charities are providing a lifeline through cash assistance so people can afford to buy goods from local markets, food baskets, clean water, and medical care.
 

How donations are being spent in Gaza

DEC charities and their local partners have been working tirelessly to support families impacted by conflict in Gaza, but each day has brought new and unexpected challenges, but they have constantly adapted their work to deliver whatever aid they can.

Multi-purpose cash assistance is providing a lifeline for families, helping them afford essential goods from local markets, as well as food baskets, clean water and medical care.

DEC charities are delivering health services through a field hospital, health centres and mobile clinics. They are also providing protection services, including psychosocial support.

In December last year, working with local partners CESVI, Concern Worldwide carried out vital repairs to a schools water filtration system, now providing a reliable source of clean drinking water for 1,400 students.

More examples of how DEC member charities are supporting communities in Gaza:

• Action Against Hunger is working in Gaza to provide supporting communities through water trucking, as well as the restoration of water desalination plants to remove impurities from water supplies to create clean and potable water.
   
• The British Red Cross are working to rehabilitate health facilities within Gaza, including emergency departments and operating theatres, as well as continuing to provide key services at a Field Hospital in Rafah.
   
• Action Against Hunger is providing lifesaving nutrition assistance, including screening and treatment for severe acute malnutrition in children.
   
• Christian Aid are working alongside local farmers to source nutrient-dense food parcels for vulnerable households, with special dietary needs for households with children, pregnant or nursing mothers, and the elderly.
   
• Plan International is working to deliver mental health, psychosocial support, and resilience-building activities for vulnerable children through counseling and recreational programming.
   

Famine in Gaza

In August, The UN-backed global hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed famine across Gaza City and the surrounding areas, where more than 500,000 people were living at the time. The announcement marked only the 5th time in more than 20 years that the IPC system has been used to confirm famine.

Although malnutrition rates have started to go down since the ceasefire agreement, the needs remain huge and more food supplies are urgently needed across the Gaza Strip. 

Combating hunger in Gaza

In Gaza, DEC charities and their local partners are providing food parcels, cash assistance, distributing non-food items as well as rehabilitating health centres with DEC funds. PARC has a long history of supporting farmers and agriculture in the oPt, and they have supported local farmers producing food which have, in turn, been distributed as food parcels to some of the most vulnerable.

Working through their local partner, DEC charity Christian Aid has been supporting local farmers to grow crops for themselves, something which was common before the start of the conflict. 

Through Christian Aid’s local partner, farmers are given essential supplies such as fertiliser, to grow tomatoes on a small plot near a displacement camp. DEC agencies are committed to empowering communities through supporting farming, helping to rejuvenate markets to ensure that the recovery process is both sustainable and inclusive.  

Hospitals and medical needs in Gaza

Over the course of the conflict many hospitals in Gaza have been badly damaged and left unable to function.

In the weeks before the ceasefire agreement, funds from the Middle East Humanitarian Appeal were helping to install a new water filtration machine at the last operational children's hospital in Gaza City, providing thousands of litres of clean water every day. This comes as a result of funding and technical support provided by DEC charity Concern Worldwide and their local partner.

Also supported by donations to the DEC, volunteers from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and the British Red Cross were able to continue to provide medical support at an ICRC field hospital in southern Gaza. 

The 60-bed hospital in Rafah remained one of the last fully operational hospitals in the area. It stood as the last line of support during a sharp surge in mass casualty incidents linked to aid distribution sites, which overwhelmed Gaza’s healthcare system.

DEC charities and their local partners are working separately to those distribution sites to deliver the support as safely as they can, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society are working across Gaza to support families with urgent medical care. 

Providing aid through cash support

DEC member charities have continued to support people in Gaza with cash assistance throughout the conflict. Now 6 months after the ceasefire agreement, it is proving to continue to be essential enabling them to buy some food and essential items when they were available.

Since the beginning of the ceasefire agreement, many of the trucks entering Gaza have been commercial and have been supplying goods, such as dry food, to local markets. With the numbers of humanitarian aid trucks still far below the required amount, providing people with multipurpose cash allows them to buy commercial goods this way.

Oxfam and their local partners have provided cash assistance to families in the Deir al Balah and Khan Younis areas of Gaza, whilst The International Rescue Committee and Save The Children and CAFOD have also been using DEC funds to provide families with cash assistance.

“The DEC has supported multi-purpose cash assistance, and this is a very dignified way to aid the community. So it doesn't end with only food parcels, but people need to rent or to buy things that they need. It really provides a dignified way to the community in Gaza.”

 - Anton Asfar of Caritas, CAFOD local partner in Gaza

How you can help people in Gaza now

Donations to the DEC Middle East Humanitarian Appeal are making a difference. The appeal is open for donations and more funds will help DEC charities and their local partners scale up their response.