Christian Aid's partners in Gaza caught up in the violence

Image N Khadir

Source: Christian Aid

As casualties and destruction mounts in Gaza, Christian Aid reports the humanitarian efforts of local partners are being restricted by the violence.

The charity has been working with local partners in the Middle East since the early 1950s. It currently works with six local partners in Gaza, providing help and support for those most in need.

Two volunteers working for one partner have been killed in airstrikes while one further staff member is in a critical condition. Another partner has reported two injured staff along with one who had a leg amputated. These numbers continue to rise.

As with other humanitarian workers, staff have lost family members, been displaced and their offices and equipment have been damaged in the blasts. The conditions are limiting their ability to move around and provide aid.

William Bell, Christian Aid's Head of Middle East Policy and Advocacy, said: "The violence is affecting everyone, civilians and humanitarians alike. Nobody is safe but still our partners in Gaza are doing extraordinary work in the most extreme conditions.

"With the local banking system still working, cash transfers via our partners are helping people displaced in Khan Younis and providing mobile medical and psychological care, including supporting a small group of Christians sheltering in Saint Porphyrius church.

"Soon the cash transfers will no longer be effective because, as one of our partners said, there's nothing left to buy locally. While our community-led response is proving more resilient than any large-scale logistical operations can deliver at present, we need to respond at a level that can only be achieved by unrestricted humanitarian access with fuel, water and electricity reconnected."

William Bell added: "Only a full ceasefire, not a temporary pause, can ensure the safe and effective supply of humanitarian support, including fuel, at the scale required to help two million Palestinians."

The UN has confirmed that 56 trucks entered Gaza on 31 October compared to an average of 500 truckloads entering Gaza every working day prior to the hostilities. 500 trucks is the very lowest number required to enable the population in Gaza to subsist.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated on 31 October that the "level of humanitarian assistance that has been allowed into Gaza up to this point is completely inadequate and not commensurate with the needs of people in Gaza, compounding the humanitarian tragedy."

Dr Hassan runs the chronic disease centre for Christian Aid's local partner Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) but since the start of the current crisis, he has also been working with PMRS' mobile health team, which delivers medicine and carries out home visits to change dressings for the wounded.

Speaking from Gaza, Dr Hassan explains: "I have lived through many wars in Gaza. But this war is not the same. We have lost a lot of doctors, nurses and hospital staff. Many healthcare workers have been killed by bombs and rockets hitting their homes.

"They are bombing crowded places, bakeries, hospitals and homes. They are bombing everywhere.

"If fuel totally runs out in Gaza it will be a catastrophe, especially those in intensive care units who are relying on ventilators, which will stop working without electricity. The hospitals will become a place where patients are only sent to the morgue."