Ensuring No One is Left Behind: Disability Inclusion in Gaza’s Humanitarian Response
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“I need my hearing aid! I need to hear.”
These are the words of Alaa, a young Palestinian woman from Gaza with a hearing disability, recalling the first moments of the war. As Israel’s bombardments intensified and families rushed to flee, Alaa struggled to understand what was happening around her.
“I could see everything… but couldn’t hear anything,” she recalled.
For thousands of Palestinians with disabilities, the war has created layers of vulnerability beyond displacement and destruction. Accessing safety, healthcare, humanitarian assistance, information, shelter, and basic services has become significantly more difficult amid ongoing hostilities and collapsing infrastructure. These barriers underscored the urgent need for coordinated UN action, as humanitarian assistance, in general, including. for persons with disabilities remained severely restricted. Access is extremely limited to critically needed assistive devices such as wheelchairs, prosthetics, and hearing aids, many of which remained largely blockaded from entering Gaza.
According to the Ministry of Health, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, while almost the entire population has experienced repeated displacement. Persons with disabilities remain among those most disproportionately affected by the crisis.[1]
Before the war, Gaza was home to approximately 58,000 persons with disabilities. According to Dr. Eyad Krunz, Director of the Gaza Office at the Stars of Hope Society, the number of persons with disabilities in Gaza has increased by an estimated 43,000 since the beginning of the war. [2]
Women and girls have been disproportionately affected by the war and its long-term consequences. According to recent estimates, approximately 38,000 women and girls in Gaza were killed between October 2023 and December 2025, including over 22,000 women and 16,000 girls. In addition, an estimated 11,000 women and girls may now be living with permanent disabilities, with profound long-term implications for their protection, wellbeing, participation, and access to services.[3]
As the humanitarian crisis deepened, coordinated action became essential. UN Women and the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR), as co-chairs of the UN Country Team’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, intensified efforts to ensure disability inclusion remained central to the humanitarian response in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Under the leadership of the UN Country Team (UNCT), the Working Group brings together the coordinated efforts of UNICEF, UNDP, ILO, UNFPA, UNESCO, UN-Habitat, WHO, UNRWA, the Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO), and national civil society organizations to strengthen disability-inclusive programming across humanitarian and recovery interventions.
“As co-chair of the UN Country Team’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, OHCHR and UN Women have been working to galvanise the UN to shape programming services and responses for persons with disabilities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” said Ajith Sunghay, Representative of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
“Disability must be treated as a cross-cutting priority embedded in all aspects of the UN’s response in Palestine.”
Supported by the Global Disability Fund, a Disability Advisor was deployed to Gaza to strengthen on-the-ground coordination and engage directly with more than 50 UN agencies, civil society organisations, organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), disability inclusion experts, and persons with disabilities. Through coordination among the UN entities, the initiative helped identify critical gaps on the ground while strengthening efforts to ensure that persons with disabilities play a meaningful role in shaping humanitarian priorities and recovery planning.
The initiative also helped strengthen the capacity of organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) to continue delivering responsive services throughout the crisis. It further informed the development of the first comprehensive disability inclusion assessment of its kind in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, conducted on behalf of the UN Country Team to support a more inclusive humanitarian response.
As Gaza continues to face immense humanitarian and recovery challenges, sustained commitment to disability inclusion remains essential to ensuring that no one is left behind.
For persons like Alaa, inclusion is not only about policies or services — it is about dignity, accessibility, protection, participation, and the equal right to survive and recover.
Through strengthened coordination, partnerships, data collection, and advocacy, the United Nations in Palestine is advancing a more inclusive humanitarian response and recovery process that places disability inclusion at its core.
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[1] United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Humanitarian Situation Updates in the Gaza Strip, and Ministry of Health (MoH), Gaza.
[2] Stars of Hope Society, Organizations Working in the Field of Disability in Light of the War on Gaza, March 2024, statement by Dr. Eyad Krunz, Director of the Gaza Office.
[3] UN Women, The Cost of War in Gaza on Women and Girls, Advocacy Brief, April 2026