Middle East Conflict
Escalation of the Middle East conflict
Two years after the escalation of the Middle East conflict, the humanitarian situation in the Middle East remains catastrophic. Millions of people are in urgent need of support.
Help is currently providing emergency aid to people from Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. We are providing affected families with rent subsidies, food, relief supplies and medical and psychological care.
We urgently request donations for this purpose:
Middle East: the suffering remains
Despite the agreed ceasefire, the humanitarian situation in the Middle East remains catastrophic. In Gaza alone, more than 71,000 people have been killed since the escalation of the Middle East conflict, including countless children.
The situation is also tense in countries such as Syria and Lebanon: in July 2025, air strikes on Syria displaced around 80,000 people. In autumn 2024, around one million people in Lebanon were forced to leave their homes as a result of air strikes.
The people in the Middle East are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
The impact of your donation for our Middle East aid
- Help supplies 15,000 people in Gaza City and Dair Al Balah with drinking water and repairs the drinking water infrastructure.
- In Cairo, we support refugee families from Gaza with rent subsidies so that they have a warm and safe home in winter.
- Help provides Palestinian children with psychological care and medical assistance.
- We enable Palestinian mothers and pregnant women to access healthcare.
- Help distributes blankets, pillows and mattresses as well as food and hygiene items to displaced families in Lebanon.
- In Syria, we provide warm winter clothing for children and distribute aid packages.
Our Aid in the Middle East
Humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip
Since the escalation of the Middle East conflict in early October 2023, humanitarian needs in the region have been increasing daily. In the Gaza Strip, around 2 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. Many families have lost their homes and are seeking shelter in the rubble of their houses. A large proportion of the people in the Gaza Strip have been displaced several times over the past year.
The supply situation in Gaza is dire. There is a shortage of drinking water, food, medical care, electricity, shelter and, above all, security. Many people do not know whether they will live to see the next day.
Situation in the Middle East
The Middle East conflict is having an impact on the entire region: fear is also growing in neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank. Violence has increased in the border regions since the conflict escalated.
In Lebanon, over 4,000 people have been killed and more than 16,000 injured since the escalation. As a result of the heavy air strikes and the ground offensive, over one million people have been displaced, many of whom have since been able to return to their home region. Despite the agreed ceasefire, the plight of the people in Lebanon remains great.
Gaza: Deadliest place for humanitarian aid workers
Since the escalation of the Middle East conflict in October 2023, 572 aid workers have been killed in the Palestinian territories.
Last year alone, 211 humanitarian workers lost their lives while carrying out aid missions. Most of them were killed in air strikes or by gunfire. This makes the Gaza Strip currently the deadliest place in the world for aid workers.
Your donation for people in the Middle East makes a difference - every euro counts!
IBAN: DE47 3708 0040 0240 0030 00
BIC: DRES DE FF 370
FAQ
As a result of the increasing humanitarian need in Gaza since October 2023, Help decided to start humanitarian operations and then set out in search of suitable partners on the ground.
We currently supply drinking water to around 15,000 people in Gaza City and Dair Al Balah and ensure a long-term drinking water supply. Help also supports Palestinian refugees in Cairo, Egypt, by providing food and hygiene items to mothers and children, rent subsidies, and health and psychosocial care.
Currently, 100% of the population (2.1 million people) in Gaza is directly threatened by famine. The latest IPC report confirms that 22% of the population, around half a million people, are in IPC phase 5 and are therefore affected by famine.
However, among all these people, there are those who are prioritised for distributions of relief items and hot meals according to humanitarian standards. These include the elderly, people with chronic illnesses or disabilities, pregnant women and children.
Source: IPC (22 August 2025)
Help acts in accordance with humanitarian standards in a needs-based approach and aims to provide people affected by disasters or conflicts with the support they most urgently need to survive.
Help always describes the project activities (and therefore also the contents of the aid packages) according to the current state of knowledge. Our donation examples are subject to change as required.
Due to the often volatile nature of humanitarian crises, the needs of affected people can change and therefore our aid measures are also subject to change. In addition, there are challenges in procurement, logistics and security risks that restrict the work of humanitarian aid workers.
Help is monitoring and reviewing the situation in Gaza very closely due to the volatile security situation. As Help plans and implements its aid measures in cooperation with locally established partner organizations, there are currently no Help employees on the ground. There are no plans for Help employees to be deployed to Gaza in the future. To ensure the safety of our partner organizations' employees, we offer them support in the form of advice and implementation of safety measures by our safety officer upon request. However, the responsibility for compliance with and implementation of security measures remains with the local partner organization.
In crisis and disaster contexts, the governments and authorities of the affected country bear the main responsibility for protecting and providing for their population. If a country does not have sufficient resources or capacities to meet the basic needs of the affected population, international aid organisations such as Help become active directly or indirectly via partners to help bridge gaps in supplies. This applies, for example, to countries whose economic or humanitarian situation is extremely tense and which are dependent on foreign aid to ensure that the population is supplied. Humanitarian needs are the top priority here.
Israel is an economically strong country. In 2023, Israel was ranked 25th in the United Nations Human Development Index, which is also known as the prosperity indicator. In comparison: Germany ranked 7th, Lebanon 109th and Syria 157th.
So far, the Israeli government has not declared a state of emergency or asked for international aid. Should this change, Help will contact potential partner organisations and examine possible aid measures in order to take action if necessary.
