More than 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, about 90% of the population, have been driven from their homes as a result of Israeli military attacks and evacuation orders since October 2023.

Aid agencies and medical professionals have joined forces to call urgently for a ceasefire to allow life-saving polio vaccinations to be administered to about 640,000 children aged under 10 following

12 UK charities and organisations working in and on Gaza have condemned the UK Government’s apparent unwillingness to take the action needed to save lives in Gaza as Israeli "evacuation" orders and relentless bombardment threaten to cripple the aid response, and call for an immediate end to all arms sales to Israel. 

Following the Government’s decision to suspend some arms licences to Israel, 18 UK charities and organisations have issued the following statement:

As a collective voice of UK humanitarian, development, human rights and faith-based agencies working in and on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, we strongly urge the UK Government to vote in favour of the UN General Assembly resolution that supports the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the ‘Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’ and demands concrete measures to uphold international law, especially in implementing accountability for ongoing violations in Gaza and the West Bank.

In February this year, the Israeli military conducted a brutal siege of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, trapping terrified patients, medical staff, and displaced civilians inside for a week. Once they left, the hospital – the largest in the south of Gaza – was left non-functional and severely damaged, with no water, electricity, food or oxygen.  

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) is deeply alarmed by the Israeli military’s forced displacement orders in northern Gaza that includes orders to evacuate critically ill patients and healthcare workers from Al Awda, Indonesian and Kamal Adwan hospitals.

Hospitals, clinics, and humanitarian workers remain under siege as medical facilities in northern Gaza run out of fuel, medical supplies, and safe passage, leaving more than 300 critically ill patients trapped.

As Gaza marks one-year of Israel’s military assault and siege, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) demands meaningful action to enforce a ceasefire, uphold international law, and protect Palestinians from potential genocide. 

The UK is failing to stand up for international law, as Israeli forces are forcibly transferring civilians from northern Gaza to the south and relentlessly bombarding the area, making it uninhabitable and stripping away the essential conditions that sustain life. The Government must demand that Israel end its heinous attacks, and take action to oppose any annexation or shrinking of Gaza. Its current silence is tantamount to complicity.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has today launched a short film, ‘One Year In’, which provides a first-hand account of life in Gaza. It is told from the perspective of the charity’s aid workers who live and work there.  

MAP’s aid workers, Amal Zaqout, Mohammed Aghaalkurdi and Tarneem Hammad, have lived their entire lives under Israel’s military occupation and 17 years under blockade. Since October 2023, they have been under constant attack by the Israeli military.