HI Palestine: Relentless Commitment to Principled Humanitarian Work Amid Unprecedented Challenges

In 2025 and long before that, the political and humanitarian context in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been rapidly deteriorating with unprecedented challenges and a shrinking humanitarian space. Nevertheless, humanitarian actors like Humanity & Inclusion – Handicap International continue relentlessly to serve vulnerable communities and persons with disabilities, guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, independence, and impartiality.

Across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, we responded in line with rights and immense needs.

While Gaza has been the deadliest place for humanitarian workers with over 500 aid workers killed, our team remained committed despite being affected themselves during a man-made humanitarian crisis, marked with non-stop use of explosive weapons in populated areas, repeated forced displacement, weaponized starvation, blocking of aid, and denial of basic services. We raised awareness of the risks posed by explosive ordnance to the population through millions of text messages, radio spots, and awareness sessions. We also intervened in inclusive education in emergencies, serving more than 1,000 children with and without disabilities, delivering hundreds of learning kits, and working in 10 temporary learning spaces.

In light of the high number of wounded and the sharp increase in the number of persons with disabilities, we supported the wounded and amputees with 95 prosthetic limbs and 4094 Prosthetic and Orthotic services (P&O) in addition to physical rehabilitation and over 5,000 sessions of mental health and psychosocial sessions. Additionally, our Atlas Logistique services included warehousing and transportation for various principled humanitarian actors to support their aid delivery within the Gaza Strip.

In the West Bank, our team is navigating a vast network of more than 1,000 military checkpoints, gates, and roadblocks to reach isolated communities in need who are denied access to essential services like health and education, especially displaced refugees in the northern West Bank following repeated Israeli military incursions and record-breaking settler violence and demolitions. We provided more than 2,500 children with around 2,000 remedial and catch-up classes, conducted over 2,000 rehab sessions, distributed dozens of assistive devices, including wheelchairs, hearing aids, and crutches, and performed almost 8,000 explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) sessions in the north of the West Bank.

We remain committed to following a localized approach, working with local organizations for persons with disabilities (OPDs) and local partners, an extensive network of community-based agents, as well as other principled humanitarian actors, including INGOs, UN agencies, and local implementing partners, to ensure that no one is left behind, through sustainable and inclusive humanitarian action.

Spokespersons are available for interviews upon media request.