Over the past 55 years, the ICRC has worked to alleviate the suffering of people affected by conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories (ILOT).
Here's an overview of what we did in the first half of 2022:
√ Ensuring Dignity in Detention
- Within the framework of our endeavors to secure humane treatment and conditions of detention for detainees, we carried out 285 visits to Palestinian detainees in Israeli and Palestinian detention facilities. We also contributed to the improvement of detention conditions for around 1,960 detainees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
√ Maintaining Family Links
- We transported and facilitated permits for almost 24,000 family members to visit their relatives in Israeli detention facilities. Over 3,500 detainees were able to see their loved ones through regular visits.
- We also facilitated they exchange of 21 Red Cross Messages and over 500 salamat (i.e verbal greetings) between detainees and their families, and between separated families across borders.
√ Improving Access to Water and Electricity
We enhanced access to essential servies (water, electricity and wastewater treatment) for almost 560,000 residents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and we helped improve the infrastructure.
150,000 residents of Gaza benefitted from infrastructure projects within the framework of the Gaza Resilience program to:
- improve the reliability and availability of electricity supply through the installation of new equipment to manage electricity demand, as well as the installation of solar panels.
- increase the ability of water and wastewater facilities to continue to function during armed hositilies and other shocks.
√ Supporting Vulnerable Communities
- We supported 67 families whose houses were destroyed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem with cash grants.
- We supported Persons with Disability (PWDs) and individuals severely injured by confrontations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by providing 51 households with grants to help them start small businesses.
- We provided 81 households in the Gaza Strip with Cash for Work grants to support service providers with different activities.
- We provided 18 sheep-farmers and 47 households affected by settler violence and settlement expansion in the West Bank with cash grants to help them rehabilitate animal shelters and green-houses and enhance farming.
- We supported 89 poultry farms with cash grants to increase their productivity and improve the food supply in Gaza through the Gaza Resilience Program.
- We helped distributed 1,793 ecological bio-traps to 270 farmers in the West Bank and 5,400 bio-traps to 70 farmers in the Gaza Strip to help them protect their trees against different pests.
- We helped over 1,400 people improve their livelihoods in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: farmers received ecological bio-traps to help protect their trees and reducev the use of chemical pesticides.
- We helped vaccinate over 47,000 sheep and goats against chlamydia to reduce the morality of fetuses in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture in the West Bank; and we provided 140 farmers in the Gaza Strip with agriculture inputs.
√ Caring for the Sick and Wounded
- We provided medical supplies and helped organize capacity building initiatives and on-the-job trainings for emergency medical teams at hospitals in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem - 230 medical staff members benefitted from over 10 Basic Emergency and Trauma trainings.
- We also supported the physical rehabilitation of almost 3,500 PWDs and promoted their integration into society in partnership with the Artifical Limbs and Polio Center (ALPC) in the Gaza Strip.
√ Strengthening Mental Health and Psychological Support
- We continued our partnership with the Ministry of Health to support the mental and psychological wellbeing of residents in the Gaza Strip by training 33 facilitators from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Palestinian Civil Defence and Military Medical Services as well as the Palestine Amputee Football Association.
- We provided financial support for the training of 20 social workers and psychologists from Barzilai Hospital in Southern Israel to assist them in improving their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in partnership with the Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC).
√ Monitoring, Promoting and Ensuring Respect for International Humanitarian Law
- The ICRC maintains a regular dialogue with authorities and other actors on all sides to remind them of their obligations under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL). It shares reports and observations about respect for IHL in a confidential manner directly with all parties to the conflict.
- Throughout the first six months of 2022, we continued to promote IHL and other applicable norms among Palestinian Security Forces, official authorities, university students and community members in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
√ Engaging with the Community
- We engaged around 60 Palestinian women from the West Bank in a training and exhibition focuses on recycling and reusing household waste.
- We worked closely with ALPC and Bozour Theater Association for Culture and Art to implement an art therapy project for PWDs in the Gaza Strip. Together , we helped 18 persons living with amputation put together a theatrical performance to endorse the mental and psychological well-being of PWDs and promire their social inclusion through art.
√ Partnering with the National Societies
- We worked closely with our partners in the PRCS in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Magen David Adom (MDA) in Israel.
- As part of these efforts, we co-organized a workshop with MDA to tackle the joint deployment of a Red Cross hospital at an Israeli healthcare facility.
√ Through the ICRC's support:
- 50 pallets of medical supplies, relief material and information technology equipment were delivered into Gaza to the PRCS.
- The PRCS Emergency Medical Services responded to 33,137 callouts, and 156 new staff members and volunteers received sessions to enhance their knowledge on the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its fundamental principles, including the distinctive emblem.
- The PRCS responded to house destruction cases in the West Bank by distributing non-food items to 20 affected families.
- 35 MDA Emergency Medical Service staff members staff members and volunteers were deployed to Moldova and Ukraine to support ICRC pre-hospital programs.
