The Humanitarian Situation Update is issued by OCHA Occupied Palestinian Territory twice a week. The Gaza Strip is covered on Tuesdays and the West Bank on Thursdays. The Gaza Humanitarian Response Update is issued every other Tuesday. The next Humanitarian Situation Update will be issued on 25 March.

According to UN monitoring teams, additional procedures and movement obstacles have been put in place by Israeli authorities to control access into East Jerusalem on Fridays during Ramadan. Fingerprints at checkpoints for entry and exit are required during the designated access times between 5:00 and 17:00 on Fridays. Moreover, all the main vehicular roads leading to the Old City of Jerusalem are largely blocked with police tapes and flying checkpoints on Fridays, with people forced to walk through narrow lanes marked by movable, metal barriers leading to the gates of the Old City, where Israeli forces deploy additional mobile checkpoints to conduct ID checks. Dozens of people have been observed being turned away before even reaching the gates of Al Aqsa Mosque.

At present, there are 849 movement obstacles which are permanently or intermittently controlling, restricting and monitoring Palestinian movement in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the H2 area of Hebron. A rapid survey conducted by OCHA in January and February 2025 found that 36 new movement obstacles have been set in the past three months, the majority following the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire in mid-January 2025, further impeding access by Palestinians to basic services and workplaces. Other closures, believed to have been set up in 2024, were documented. Significantly, a total of 29 new gates have been installed across the West Bank, either as new stand-alone closures or added to existing partial checkpoints, bringing the overall number of open or closed road gates across the West Bank to 288, constituting a third of movement obstacles. Of these, about 60 per cent (172 out of 288) are frequently closed gates. Coupled with an increase in the number of installed obstacles, the intensification of movement restrictions has entailed prolonged delays at checkpoints, the intermittent closure of key access points connecting population centres across the West Bank, and an increase in the number of closures that are frequently closed. In total, documented obstacles include: 94 checkpoints staffed 24/7; 153 partial (intermittently staffed) checkpoints (of which 45 have frequently closed gates); 205 road gates (of which 127 are frequently closed); 101 linear closures (such as earthwalls and trenches); 180 earthmounds; and 116 roadblocks. Checkpoints on the Green Line are not included in this data, nor are restrictions – such as the closure of Jenin refugee camp for returnees or the declaration of “closed military zones” – which do not necessarily have a physical element on the ground.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between January and 28 February 2025, 64 attacks on health care were documented across the West Bank. These attacks resulted in four deaths and 11 injuries, affected seven health facilities, in addition to 43 ambulances. Furthermore, at least 14 health care staff were detained or arrested while on duty. Most attacks (78 per cent) where reported in Tulkarm and Jenin governorates.

Funding

• As of 20 March 2025, Member States have disbursed approximately US$175.6 million out of the $4.07 billion (4.3 per cent) requested to meet the most critical humanitarian needs of three million out of 3.3 million people identified as requiring assistance in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2025, under the 2025 Flash Appeal for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Nearly 88 per cent of the requested funds are for humanitarian response in Gaza, with just over 12 per cent for the West Bank. Moreover, during February 2025, the oPt Humanitarian Fund (oPt HF)managed 87 ongoing projects, totalling $62.6 million, to address urgent needs in the Gaza Strip (86 per cent) and the West Bank (14 per cent). Of these projects, 50 are being implemented by international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), 25 by national NGOs and 12 by UN agencies. Notably, 37 out of the 62 projects implemented by INGOs or the UN are being implemented in collaboration with national NGOs. For more information, please see OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service webpage and the oPt HF webpage.

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit https://www.unocha.org/.