Policy paper

Humanitarian situation in Gaza: the UK government’s response

Updated 8 April 2024

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The UK is committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that 2.7 million people across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) need humanitarian assistance, including everyone in Gaza. The World Food Programme has said 9 out of 10 people in northern Gaza are living on less than a meal a day.

1. Aid

Aid funding

The UK has trebled our aid commitment to the Palestinian people in the 2023 to 2024 financial year, providing an additional £70 million of funding for humanitarian support. This funding supports partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.

This is in addition to the existing UK commitment to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) of £27 million bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) for financial year 2023 to 2024. 

£4.25 million in UK aid will help ensure life-saving support to vulnerable women and girls through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. This support is expected to reach around a fifth of adult women in Gaza, with up to 100 community midwives, around 20,000 menstrual hygiene kits and 45,000 clean delivery kits. This has been provided through central ODA funding to UNFPA.

Watch: UK steps up health support for women in Gaza (YouTube)

Delivering aid

Four humanitarian flights, enabled by the RAF, have delivered a total of 74 tonnes of aid to Egypt. These deliveries have included:   

  • lifesaving items such as wound care packs, tents, blankets and mattresses
  • vital equipment including forklift trucks, belt conveyors and lighting towers, to help the ERCS to manage and deliver the international aid effort

Enabling equipment arriving in Egypt to help partners in the region to deliver aid into Gaza via the Rafah border crossing (3 November 2023).

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Ship Lyme Bay also delivered 87 tonnes of UK and Cypriot aid from Cyprus to Egypt in January 2024 for onward distribution in Gaza.

The UK and Qatar are working together to get more aid into Gaza. Our first joint consignment, containing 17 tonnes of family sized tents, was flown on 25 January 2024. The tents will provide critical shelter for people and are desperately needed, as more families are displaced by the conflict.

Watch: Foreign Secretary David Cameron sees UK aid for Gaza in Qatar (YouTube)

The UK and Jordan delivered 4 tonnes of aid by air to Tal Al-Hawa Hospital in northern Gaza on 21 February 2024. This included medicines, fuel, and food for hospital patients and staff. On 26 March, as part of the Jordanian-led international mission, the UK Royal Air Force airdropped over 10 tonnes of food along the northern Gaza coastline. This included water, rice, cooking oil, flour, tinned goods and baby formula for civilians.

Watch: UK-Jordan deliver aid by air to a hospital in northern Gaza (YouTube)

150 tonnes of UK aid, including more than 13,000 blankets and 840 family-sized tents, entered Gaza on 13 March 2024 through the Jordanian land route. The United Nations [UNICEF] will distribute this aid to people in need.  

The World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing more than 2,000 tonnes of UK-funded food aid, the UK’s largest delivery of aid to Gaza to date. This includes fortified wheat flour for bakeries, hot meals and ready-to-eat food parcels. The food parcels will feed more than 275,000 people in Gaza. Each parcel consists of canned vegetables, meat and fish, and date bars, and can meet half of the daily calorie needs of a family of 5 for 15 days.

Watch: how the UK is working with WFP to deliver food to people in Gaza (YouTube)

Aid distribution and routes

We are doing everything we can to get more aid into Gaza and open more crossings.

We continue to support the Jordanian humanitarian land corridor from Amman in Jordan into Gaza. In partnership with the World Food Programme, 750 tonnes of food aid arrived in the first delivery in December 2023 and a second delivery of 315 tonnes arrived in January 2024. The 150 tonnes of UK aid core relief items that entered Gaza on 13 March 2024 used this route.

The Foreign Secretary gave a statement on 5 April 2024 after Israel announced the opening Ashdod port for aid and the Erez checkpoint, for more aid access into Gaza.

Israel must take steps, working with other partners including the UN and Egypt, to significantly increase the flow of aid into and through Gaza, particularly to the north. This includes allowing prolonged humanitarian pauses, opening more land crossings into Gaza, and fully restoring and sustaining water, fuel and electricity supplies.

We announced on 6 April 2024 a new package of military and civilian support to set up a maritime aid corridor to Gaza, including the deployment of a Royal Navy ship to the Eastern Mediterranean. The ship, alongside new UK aid and British expertise, will support the establishment of an international humanitarian maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza, supported by many of our partner governments and the UN. It is expected to be operational in early May.

We are also committing up to £9.7 million for aid deliveries, logistical expertise and equipment support to the corridor, and expertise – to maximise the levels of aid reaching those people who desperately need it.

A UK government logistics advisor talks to Egyptian Red Crescent staff as UK aid arrives in Egypt (25 October 2023).

Specialist UK support

The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (PHRST) has deployed experts through GOARN (Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network). These experts are supporting the UN to strengthen disease surveillance and coordination of public health services in Gaza.

2. Working with international partners to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza  

We are calling for an immediate pause to get aid in and hostages out of Gaza, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life. The Foreign Secretary continues to discuss and press for action to increase aid to Gaza in his regular calls and meetings with his counterparts.

The UK played a leading role in securing the passage of Security Council resolution 2720, which set out the urgent demand for expanded humanitarian access.

The Foreign Secretary has appointed a Representative for Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Mark Bryson-Richardson. He is based in the region and is working intensively to address the blockages preventing more aid reaching Gaza.

An aircraft carrying UK aid for Gaza is unloaded in Egypt (23 November 2023).

3. More about UK aid for civilians in Gaza 

Find out more about what you can do to help people in Gaza. 

The UK–Occupied Palestinian Territories development partnership summary outlines our development work with the Occupied Palestinian Territories and was published before the events of 7 October 2023.   

Announcements of UK humanitarian aid to Gaza

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