Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel

Shane Stevenson, Oxfam Country Director for the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel said:   

“Finally, for the first of 12 consecutive nights, two million Palestinians in Gaza, including hundreds of thousands of traumatized children, can rest rather than lie awake in fear as bombs fly over their homes.  And civilians across Israel will be spared the threat of rocket attacks.  

The United Nations and all other humanitarian actors have spent 15 years delivering humanitarian support to 2.1m Palestinians blockaded inside Gaza, and yet, there is still no sustained collective political action or will to resolve it. 

400,000 people in Gaza do not have access to regular water supply after 11 days of bombardment devastated electricity and water services and severely impacted the three main desalination plants in Gaza city , Oxfam warned today.

Civilians are once again paying the price for the failures of political leaders to negotiate a just and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis. Oxfam calls for an immediate end to all violence.

Without a peace deal based on international law, the US announcement to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy to the city is a provocative and dangerous move for both Palestinians and Israelis, Oxfam said today.

The international community continues to turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations of international law and the abuse of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Oxfam said today. 

The system designed to reconstruct Gaza after the 2014 conflict is failing to meet the needs of 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, as an already dire water and sanitation crisis escalates dangerously, Oxfam warned today in a new report. 

As the blockade imposed by Israel approaches its 9th anniversary, it continues to devastate the lives and livelihoods of 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza. This collective punishment keeps people poor, denies them their rights and fails to make Israel safer, Oxfam said today.

Over 150,000 people from around the world have joined 35 organizations in calling for world leaders to press the Israeli government to lift the blockade on Gaza as its reconstruction could take 17 years with just 5% of building materials allowed in one year on since the end of the last conflict.

Rich countries have paid out less than half the amount they originally pledged to help countries recover from a snapshot of three major humanitarian crises, according to Oxfam.