International Committee of the Red Cross

ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES We have watched for more than two months now as countless families, individuals, and communities have been impacted by this conflict. From the attacks in Israel on October 7th, to the humanitarian situation currently seen in Gaza and the increasing tensions in the West Bank, the amount of human suffering has been immense. In Gaza, the ICRC has more than 100 staff who remain working amid the violence. We have pre-positioned life saving supplies, and recently through the Rafah crossing, we brought in medical supplies and a new team including surgical and weapon contamination experts. During the ceasefire from November 24th to December 1st, we facilitated the release and transfer of a total of 105 hostages from Gaza and 154 Palestinian detainees from Israeli places of detention to be reunited with their loved ones. Our deep desire is for all hostages to be released, and that civilians be shielded from the pain and suffering that armed conflict brings. Some additional highlights of our response: • 50,000 people displaced by the conflict received financial assistance from the ICRC • More than 18,500 patients were treated with medical supplies provided by the ICRC • 233 surgeries were performed by the ICRC’s surgical team at the European Gaza Hospital since November 2nd • Around 4,000 family tracing requests were registered since the escalation, some of which have been closed as contact was successfully re-established • Reminded parties to the conflict of their obligations, documented IHL violations and raised concerns bilaterally with parties to the conflict Stocks are running precariously low, and so many people are desperate for food and other essential items. The ongoing hostilities and resulting humanitarian needs are expected to grow in 2024. We are ready to rapidly scale up given the vast needs, but we need to be able to regularly bring in large volumes of humanitarian aid and have the necessary access and safety guarantees. We genuinely hope that we can count on your continuous support to continue our life-saving mission in Israel and the Occupied Territories. See more information here: https://www.icrc.org/en/document/israel-and-occupied-territories-key-facts-and-figures-october-december-2023

Enabling community members to participate meaningfully in activity design and implementation. Before undertaking improvements to sanitation facilities in Roraima state, Brazil (covered by the Brasilia regional delegation), the ICRC engaged in dialogue with the community, comprised of indigenous migrants, to ensure that the facilities were adapted to their customs and that they will be used and maintained properly. It consulted the community members on the design of the facilities, with community members making such suggestions as including toilets for children. Some members also expressed interest in helping construct the facilities and were hired to do so. In Colombia, more than 90 families of people who were missing in connection with past or ongoing conflict were consulted in the development of a new ICRC strategy for responding to the issue of missing people. The families were asked to share which needs they considered most relevant to them, identify other types of needs that had not been suggested yet by the ICRC and comment on the current strategy’s aims. The ICRC used the families’ input to define the actions to be considered in the new strategy and that were necessary to ensure that its responses are adapted to the preferences and concerns of missing people’s families. Drawing on their insights, the ICRC also recognized a need to clarify its work and mandate for them, how it works with other institutions, and the importance of reinforcing tailored approaches to the needs of ethnic groups in specific areas of Colombia. In Borno state in Nigeria, members of a community participated in the design, implementation and management of an ICRC initiative to repair and upgrade boreholes with solar systems, which they themselves had requested through the local authorities. During ICRC focus groups, key community members, including from particularly vulnerable groups, helped to identify strategies to make the project more meaningful and sustainable. This included setting up a committee comprised of selected community members who would be tasked to oversee the day-to-day management of the upgraded facilities. After the committee was formed in close cooperation with the community, the ICRC trained the members in community-based water facility management. These efforts led to improved access to sufficient and safe drinking water for the community, and an increased sense of ownership among them of the facilities. Elsewhere in north-eastern Nigeria, the ICRC worked with IDPs, returnees and residents of selected villages to jointly define a multidisciplinary response that would reach the most at-risk and in-need people in an area where the humanitarian needs far exceeded the organization’s capacity to respond. After analysing the different diversity factors – including age, sex/gender and disability – and social-power dynamics that drive social inclusion and exclusion in the community, the ICRC held a series of discussions with different sub-groups of the community, including particularly vulnerable people. Community members shared their priority issues and identified those among them who were most affected by these issues; the ICRC also clarified what type of support it could provide. Overall, the process helped the ICRC gain a better grasp of the social context in these villages, to guide its future decisions on where and on whom to focus its response. Several participants also shared that they had gained insight into their collective challenges, while also becoming more aware of their community’s diverse experiences, which helped to foster social cohesion among them. From 2020 to 2021, as part of an ICRC needs assessment, families of missing people in South Sudan described their needs and coping mechanisms during interviews and focus groups with ICRC staff members. Following this, the ICRC developed a multidisciplinary accompaniment programme aimed at bringing families together, increasing their resilience and creating an environment of peer support; this was piloted in 2022. The families attended sessions co-facilitated by their ICRC-trained peer – also a relative of a missing person – with help from a South Sudan Red Cross volunteer. Families were also informed of the Movement’s family-links activities, the existing referral pathways for addressing their multifaceted needs and update them on relevant national efforts. At the end of the pilot with two groups in Juba, 95% of the participants reported having reduced levels of distress. Participants also shared that they conducted support visits to each other’s houses, even without the ICRC’s involvement, and extended help to those among them with specific needs.