A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect on Sunday, 19 January 2o25. While much uncertainty remains, the international community, including aid organisations like Islamic Relief, welcomed the news as a rare moment of hope amid almost 500 days of relentless bombardment of Gaza.
Despite the ceasefire, Gaza remains in a critical state of emergency, with urgent humanitarian aid still desperately needed. Islamic Relief is steadfast in its commitment, continuing to provide daily distributions of hot meals, clean water, medical supplies and psychosocial support.
We have begun clearing debris from main streets, enabling access to neighbourhoods — an essential step toward rebuilding homes, schools, medical centres, and shattered lives.
The road to recovery is long but, with your support, we can help to rebuild Gaza and restore hope for its people.
On Monday, 20 January 2025, we began removing rubble to improve access to neighbourhoods. We are currently clearing minor rubble from main streets, accounting for risks including unexploded ordnance, and may scale up this activity depending on need. Islamic Relief was among the first organisations to begin this work.
Together with our partners in Gaza, we have been providing emergency relief to families in desperate need throughout the crisis. We will expand our ongoing emergency response to address immediate needs that have emerged since the ceasefire came into effect on 19 January, namely, the anticipated large-scale return of internally displaced people from southern Gaza to the north.
We will scale up our current activities, such as distributing hot meals and providing drinking water to displaced people. The expansion of these efforts will see us reach communities in areas of northern Gaza we were previously unable to access, including Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahya and Jabaliya. We will also expand our education and psychosocial support initiatives into new areas to reach more children in need.
The situation on the ground in Gaza remains fluid and we will continue to monitor it and adapt our plans and responses as needs and resources dictate. We are continuously exploring additional activities that can address evolving needs most impactfully.
Islamic Relief has also prepared plans to help Palestinians beyond the three phases of the ceasefire and once the situation on the ground stabilises – including helping to rebuild some of Gaza’s destroyed infrastructure such as homes and schools.
We continue to pray and advocate for lasting peace, with justice and accountability for the horrors perpetrated against civilians. We want to see lasting peace where all people can live in safety and dignity, and have their fundamental human rights upheld. We believe this will not be possible until the root causes of the crisis are addressed and there is an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.
For more than a year, Palestinian families in Gaza struggled to survive under relentless Israeli bombardment and siege.
By tightening its blockade, Israel caused severe shortages of food, water, medicine, and fuel, crippling every sector in Gaza, from healthcare to sewage.
Starvation became a weapon of war, pushing Gaza to the brink of famine. By the end of 2024, 1 in 10 children were acutely malnourished, and people were starving to death. Over 90% of the population was displaced, with many repeatedly forced to flee with no safe haven.
The bombardment destroyed more than 60% of residential buildings, attacked hospitals and schools, and left areas littered with unexploded ordnance.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israeli attacks killed more than 45,500 people – mostly women and children – since last October, and injured over 108,300 more.
We have worked in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1997 and have a well-established local team in Gaza. During this current massacre, we have been compelled to suspend our long-term programming, to focus all our efforts and resources on lifesaving aid distribution.
Our team and local partners in Gaza continue to deliver aid, despite facing the same challenges as the communities we support.
Over the last year, we have distributed hot meals and desperately needed clean water to people in shelters. To help combat the spread of disease, we have set up portable toilets and provided hygiene kits to displaced people.
We have organised games and performances to help support children’s mental health and provide a momentary distraction from the horrors they are enduring.
Before October 2023, Islamic Relief supported 8,750 orphans in Gaza through our Orphan Sponsorship Programme. We now support more than 16,400 children.
The figures below were last updated on 6 January 2025.
medical items
family food packs
food vouchers
children have received lipid-based nutrient supplements to help prevent malnutrition
fresh vegetable packs
hot ready-to-eat meals
clean water distribution
people have received healthcare services
family hygiene kits
orphans sponsored
children have received psychosocial support
families have received warm clothes, blankets, mattresses and makeshift tents
Last updated 23 January 2025
Islamic Relief has been working with local partners across Gaza and the wider Middle East region to ensure we can procure and distribute as much aid as we can.
We are working with UN agencies such as the World Food Programme, who are bringing in some food via the Kerem Shalom crossing which we then distribute. Through a number of additional trucks, we have also been able to bring in and deliver vital hygiene, medical and personal items. This included warm winter clothing, feminine hygiene products and children’s nappies.
Despite the huge challenges, our team in Gaza and our local partners are delivering aid every day. So far, we’ve cooked over 58 million ready-to-eat meals for displaced families in the overcrowded shelters.
We desperately need more aid to get into Gaza, alongside a permanent ceasefire. Only an estimated 10% of the required food aid was getting in during the bombardment.
Despite the extremely difficult and dangerous situation, Islamic Relief is helping thousands of people in Gaza with vital aid including food, cash grants, water and hygiene kits, and warm materials.
Our teams are working closely with international non-profit organisations and local partner organisations to ensure aid can enter Gaza and be distributed directly to those most in need.
We are delivering aid every day but the scale and location depend on the security situation.
Yes. We were still able to help families through our Orphan Sponsorship Programme, with cash transfers onto a bank card, IR staff visits, psychosocial support for the children, prioritising hot meals for children, food parcels and other supplies, including hygiene and dignity kits, water and sanitation facilities.
Through our partnership with the World Food Program, we are delivering emergency food supplies to Gaza. Together, we cook daily ready-to-eat meals for nearly 150,000 families who fled their homes.
There was a severe cash crisis, with no cash coming into Gaza for seven months. The number of functional banks decreased. However, some shops exchanged cash and there was some semblance of functionality in some areas, with people able to access cash.
Islamic Relief is using the World Food Programme system and bank cards for people to withdraw funds in areas in Gaza where were undamaged.
Guardians in our Orphan Sponsorship Programme were issued with bank cards onto which funds were transferred. In ordinary circumstances, the funds would then be drawn and used for essentials such as medical needs and food, etc. Currently, the payment system for Gaza is largely working. Transfers are going through, and the cards are working.
Currently, our local team on the ground are relatively safe and well, to the best of our knowledge. So far no Islamic Relief staff have been injured or killed, and we are doing all we can to support them at this time. Our main office in Gaza City was badly damaged by bombing but, fortunately, no staff were harmed.
Like many people in Gaza, most of our staff have had to flee their homes and are trying to keep themselves and their families safe at the same time as delivering lifesaving aid.
Islamic Relief has strict policies and processes in place to ensure that aid is used for its intended humanitarian purpose.
We fully screen all partner organisations before working with them, to make sure they are reputable. We also carry out in depth checks to ensure the quality of their work, what policies and processes they have in place to manage funds appropriately and safeguard people in the communities, and to ensure that partners subscribe to our humanitarian values.
This oversight, monitoring and quality control is done by an Islamic Relief team that is on the ground in Gaza. Our work in Gaza – as elsewhere around the world – has also been regularly audited by leading global auditors, to ensure that funds are going to people in need. Islamic Relief follows the recognised international sanction regimes such as UN Security Council.
In the current context, all civilians in Gaza are vulnerable due to the lack of food, water and medical care. Around 1.7 million people have had to flee their homes and need support.
Islamic Relief is helping as many people as we can, and our response is targeting the most vulnerable such as people who are displaced, children, the elderly, people with disabilities and civilian casualties as much as possible.
In the current context, all civilians in Gaza are vulnerable due to the lack of food, water and medical care. Around 1.7 million people have had to flee their homes and need support.
Islamic Relief is helping as many people as we can, and our response is targeting the most vulnerable such as people who are displaced, children, the elderly, people with disabilities and civilian casualties as much as possible.
Any organisation with which we partner must also adhere to an agreement covering areas such as risk management, publicity issues, child protection and terrorism.
We have committed ourselves to meeting various practice related compliance standards. The standards include those set by the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) in Australia and the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) globally. We are also signatories to various commitments, including the Leave No One Behind UN Agenda and the Red Cross Code of Conduct. By committing to these standards, we are able to measure ourselves against best practice in the sector. We are also able to assure our supporters that we maintain the highest standards of accountability, transparency, and professionalism.
For the additional funds that are coming in and those we are unable to use at the moment, we are assessing opportunities to invest in long-term development programming, including rebuilding efforts.
Sustainable development programming is just as vital as providing emergency relief, so donors can be assured donations will be used to uplift communities in Gaza. Circumstances obviously do allow us to undertake any assessments in term of rebuilding.
We also coordinate closely with other international humanitarian organisations and UN agencies to make the overall humanitarian response as effective and coordinated as possible. For instance, our partnership with the World Food Programme allows our teams to distribute food items directly within Gaza, delivering ready-to-eat meals to civilians sheltering in schools without kitchens.
