Crisis in The Holy Land

Our international network is responding to the needs of local people and saving lives across the region.

The need for urgent humanitarian assistance is growing. Your support is more critical than ever.

The scale of suffering in the Holy Land defies words.

  • More than 68,000 people killed, including thousands of women and children.

  • Millions of people displaced from their homes.

  • More than 170,000 severely injured.

  • More than 570 aid workers killed.

    Entire neighbourhoods lie in rubble. Water, food, electricity and medical care are severely restricted. Entire communities are cut off from essential supplies due to a blockade. Children are dying from hunger.

Our humanitarian response

Since October 2023, Caritas and partners have reached over 1.78 million people in Gaza

  • Food assistance for 1.1 million people.

  • Emergency shelter for 341,790 people.

  • Cash assistance for 201,132 people.

  • Water, sanitation and hygiene for 519,986 people.

  • Mental health support for 15,770 children and adolescents and 3,328 caregivers.

Providing mental health and psychosocial support

Delivering safe shelter, food and water

Increasing access to health care, repairing medical centres

Giving cash assistance to families

Therefore Caritas Internationalis urges:

  • Immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access throughout of more than 170,000 metric tons of food, health and shelter supplies pre-positioned in the region and ready for immediate dispatch into Gaza. Delay is costing lives, access must be granted now

  • Expansion of crossing points to enable a continuous and unimpeded flow of life-saving aid.

  • Urgent restoration of the UN-led humanitarian coordination mechanism to ensure impartial, secure and principled delivery.

  • Authorisation of medical evacuations for those requiring urgent specialist care. Denial is a violation of international humanitarian law.

  • Scaled up psycho-social support for traumatised populations, specially for children and caregivers, whose suffering cannot be addressed by food alone.

  • Protection of civilians, especially children, women, persons with disabilities and the elderly, and accountability for all violations. Gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law must be documented and prosecuted.

  • Full accountability for all perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity before national and international courts. Impunity must end.

  • The facilitation of NGO access, including the reversal of de-registration efforts that obstruct humanitarian presence and delivery.

  • Protection of all humanitarian workers, after the killing of 565 humanitarians, since October 2023, including two from Caritas Jerusalem, is essential. This unprecedented assault on humanitarian space must stop.

  • The full implementation of the recommendations contained in the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 19 July 2024.

Due to the severe mental and physical suffering in Gaza, we believe that no one can afford to wait another day. Medical equipment, medicines, food, and water must be safely delivered immediately. Every hour of delay deepens the suffering and undermines the fragile hope that this peace has brought.

Caritas Internationalis stands ready to support all victims and urges all actors and leaders to transform this historic truce into lasting peace.

Joint oral statement delivered by: Caritas Internationalis

Gaza is now almost totally destroyed. According to satellite imagery, more than 83 per cent of buildings in Gaza City are ruined or destroyed. Hospitals stand in ruins, and thousands of wounded people await treatment. Malnutrition spreads rapidly among children and pregnant women, while nearly two million people face the coming winter without proper shelter, fuel, or clean water.