Emergency Relief in Palestine

Integrated support

In Gaza, families face many hardships that build on top of each other. Limited clean water is a problem for drinking and cooking but also makes it difficult to maintain good hygiene. Insufficient food leads to hunger and also weakens immune systems. And seeking care for loved ones becomes almost impossible as nearby hospitals are destroyed. 

“Addressing one need in isolation is insufficient. We are aware that the lack of water and sanitation causes increased disease exposure. Food insecurity impacts well-being and coping capacity. Interrupted education harms children's learning and stability. We all know this.” – Yazdan, Anera’s branch director in Gaza.

This is why our team in Gaza designed a program to provide comprehensive services to families to protect their dignity, secure continuous access to essential services and reduce compounding risks. The team has been working on building up this program since October 2025. Today, we have five shelter communities in the program, made up of 1,836 households with more than 8,400 grandparents, parents and children. The six pillars of this program are shelter, health, water and sanitation, women’s empowerment, food security and education. Within each pillar, our team has thoughtfully considered the entire range of challenges that families in Gaza face.

Shadia's story

This type of integrated support has had a profound impact for families like Shadia’s, a 40-year-old mother of five, originally from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. After her husband was killed in December 2023, she and her children were displaced many times. Each move meant starting over, finding a place to sleep, searching for food, securing water, and keeping her children safe. Her eldest son, Hisham, who was only 14, started helping searching for food for the family. One day, while trying to bring something home for the family, he was shot. He survived, but with injuries to his spine and ongoing seizures.

When the family arrived at Al Jawazat camp, they had almost nothing. Through support provided by Anera, Shadia received integrated assistance in Al Jawazat camp, including safe shelter, bedding, hygiene kits, regular hot meals, fresh vegetables, and access to essential healthcare services.

For Shadia, the vegetables were more than food. “We did not eat vegetables throughout the war,” she says. “The prices were too high. If I had any money, I had to decide whether to buy food or pay for my children's treatment.”

The camp's medical services also allowed Hisham to access care when needed.“I am grateful my son can receive treatment here,” she says. One of the changes that meant the most to Shadia was seeing her children return to learning after months away from school. “My children were deprived of education because of the war,” she says. “Seeing them learn again makes me happy.” The support did not change what happened to her family. It did not bring back her husband or erase the years of hardship. But it gave her room to think beyond the next meal or the next bucket of water. Visit our website to read more of Shadia’s story.

To provide a snapshot of one week of Anera's integrated support activities, below are updates on our team's work in Gaza from July 26 to August 1, 2026.

Food assistance: Provided food assistance to thousands of families across Gaza, including 2,536 fresh vegetable parcels weighing 14.5 kilograms each, 3,396 ready-to-eat meal boxes reaching 1,698 households, 5,454 bags of flour and 17,056 hot meals.

Healthcare: Opened Anera’s first integrated primary healthcare clinic for mothers and children in the Sabra area of Gaza City, bringing outpatient care, maternal and child health, nutrition, mental health, pharmacy and chronic disease services together under one roof. Across Anera’s network of clinics, health teams provided 5,131 medical consultations, while community health days reached an additional 596 people.

Mental health: Anera supported another round of psychosocial support for frontline healthcare workers and journalists, bringing the total number of participants completing the program to 182.

Education: Continued operating three temporary learning spaces serving 761 children and provided a summer education program for an additional 1,177 students. Learners received regular nutritious meals, while 366 children participated in psychosocial support activities designed to strengthen emotional well-being and resilience.

Women’s empowerment: Supported 60 women through cash-for-work activities producing nutritious food for children and families. Together they prepared and distributed 18,299 nutritious snack meals, while 537 women participated in psychosocial support sessions.

Protection: Safeguarding and protection teams supported 70 people through case management, individual counseling, psychological first aid, protection awareness sessions and referrals to specialized services. Help desks at food distribution sites also responded to 1,502 inquiries, helping families access food assistance, cash assistance and other humanitarian services.

Water, sanitation and hygiene services:

• Cash-for-work teams deployed across nine displacement camps collected and safely disposed of more than 76 metric tons of solid waste, conducted health awareness sessions, sterilized shelters, improved access pathways and rehabilitated sanitation infrastructure to reduce public health risks.

• Delivered 776,666 gallons of potable water to displaced communities across Gaza City, Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis, helping families maintain access to safe drinking water.

• Our teams completed the procurement process for the installation of two reverse osmosis water treatment units at municipal wells in Gaza.

Links:

• Gaza and West Bank Response Logs
• Read more about Shadia's story