One million people in Gaza require mental health treatment: UN
The World Health Organization says two years of fighting have more than doubled the number of people in Gaza who need mental health care, rising from about 485,000 to more than one million.
Before Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that about 500,000 children in Gaza needed mental health and psycho-social support. Now almost all children are in need, it says.
In #Gaza, the number of people needing mental health care has more than doubled to over 1 million in two years.
Most displaced families live in overcrowded, makeshift sites, often in unsafe areas.
We continue scaling up our response.
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— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) October 27, 2025
‘A classroom of children was killed every single day for two years’
Gaza has been the most “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child” for two years now, the UN’s children agency says.
That’s because of the “sheer numbers of children who’ve been killed and injured, displaced, separated from their families who have lost a loved one”, said Tess Ingram, UNICEF’s spokesperson in Gaza.
“A classroom of children was killed every single day for two years in this conflict, and the scars of what the children have endured will last for many, many years to come,” Ingram told Al Jazeera, speaking from the al-Mawasi area in the south.
Gaza’s Media Office has said about 20,000 children have been killed in Israel’s bombardment since October 2023.
Israeli military not allowing tents, mobile homes into Gaza
Today there’s been two main locations where the search for captives has gone on with the help of heavy machinery from Egypt, which was finally allowed entry by Israel into Gaza last night. Search teams were distributed over areas of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, as well as in the eastern part of Gaza City to the north.
Hamas’s armed wing announced it located one body and will return it via the Red Cross to Israel at any moment. Palestinians in Gaza also want to dig out the bodies of their loved ones buried in piles of rubble from relentless Israeli attacks over the past two years.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military is not allowing tents and mobile homes to get in as well as other crucial equipment needed for people to survive these difficult living conditions.
Water here is not available all the time. Some food is available but not an amount that is enough for everyone, and it’s also a question of affordability now as prices are still high, beyond what most families could afford.
Medical necessities are also still not available in hospitals despite the ceasefire with Israel now in its third week.
Gaza children ‘scrambling for water’ after return home: UNRWA
Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA in Gaza, says no other organisation has the capacity or experience to “take on the load” required in delivering essential services to war-ravaged Gaza.
Rose said 23,000 Palestinian children have returned to school since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire started three weeks ago.
“It is very critical to them, the children, a sense of normality, but also to give their parents and their communities a sense that life is getting back to normal,” he told Al Jazeera.
“That reality for children in Gaza is not going to shopping malls with their parents, but its living in tents and scrambling for water and there has to be some way to factor that in.”
