Nearly 340,000 people in Gaza, half of them children, have been helped by Action Against Hunger since the start of the conflict

• Action Against Hunger continues to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to allow safe, sustained and sufficient humanitarian access to people in dire need in Gaza. Only a ceasefire can guarantee a response on the scale needed.
• Despite the enormous challenges, our teams in Gaza were able to provide aid to 60,000 families (340,000 people). Almost half were children.

The next few hours bring 100 days of war between Israel and Gaza, marked by a food catastrophe on the brink of famine, an outbreak of disease, an increasing number of deaths of women and children, and extremely limited humanitarian access.

"As a humanitarian organisation - impartial, independent and neutral - Action Against Hunger's priority is to have safe, sustained and sufficient access to vulnerable people to ensure they have the basics to survive," says Chiara Saccardi, Action Against Hunger's regional head of operations in the Middle East. "In this case, we are talking about the entire population of Gaza: displaced, hungry, thirsty, and many sick and injured. The situation is beyond desperate and operationally we do not have the conditions in place to meet these vital needs on the scale required. As a humanitarian organisation, we are deeply concerned about this, when we should have this access and protection during armed conflict. More people will die of hunger and disease without an immediate ceasefire and an increase in aid," concludes Chiara Saccardi. 
For 100 days, humanitarian agencies like Action Against Hunger have been working in extreme conditions to distribute some basic survival items. Our staff are exhausted, sick, displaced, but they keep going. We need a ceasefire. Action Against Hunger is gravely concerned about the enormous loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza, especially women and children, as well as the conditions of the hostages and we call for their immediate and unconditional release.

OUR IMPACT IN GAZA SINCE OCTOBER 7

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Action Against Hunger teams distribute water to civilans in Gaza City © Action Against Hunger.

For more than three months, Action Against Hunger has been working in extreme and dangerous conditions to provide clean water in water tankers, distribution of hygiene and shelter items and fresh food to Gazans, both displaced and in host communities, as well as cleaning and solid waste management services for displacement shelters, and construction and provision of latrines and hand-washing facilities.

In figures, our teams were able to distribute 1 million litres of drinking water, which reached more than 51,600 internally displaced people (IDPs); while more than 17,440 people received fresh food parcels, providing them with fresh vegetables and fruit at a time when most shops in Gaza were almost sold out. At the same time, we were able to distribute hygiene items to 19 IDP shelters, mostly in Rafah, benefiting more than 95,900 people; and shelter items, mainly plastic sheeting and wood, as this is what was available on the local market, to almost 17,500 people in 10 IDP shelters.

However, due to the continuing blockade of Gaza, not enough life-saving aid is reaching people in need. Local market supplies are limited and inflation has soared, making prices unaffordable for most, and access to aid is uneven as people continue to relocate and we can no longer reach the areas in the north, where people are most hungry, as a result of the fighting and lack of transport. 
Despite this unprecedented situation, our teams were able to reach 340,000 people in total in Gaza - approximately 60,000 families - from 18 October to 21 December 2023. Almost half of them (48 per cent) were children.
The majority of our beneficiaries, as people continued to move southwards in search of a safe haven, were in Rafah (50%). The rest were in Khan Younis (18%), northern Gaza (18%) and central Gaza (14%).