International research shows older people facing overlooked health crisis in Gaza News
Ashraf Amra, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons
International research shows older people facing overlooked health crisis in Gaza

New research published Thursday by two non-profit organizations, HelpAge International and Amnesty International, shows older people suffering an overlooked health crisis in occupied Gaza.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Research, Advocacy, Policy, and Campaigns, explained the key facets of the situation, stating:

During armed conflict, older people’s needs are often overlooked. In Gaza, older people are enduring an unprecedented physical and mental health collapse as a direct result of Israel’s deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians … The rights and needs of older people in Gaza must not be ignored.

HelpAge International conducted a study of 416 older people, finding them to be in an “exceptionally precarious situation.” For example, 79 percent of older people have been displaced more than three times since October 2023, often cutting them off from much-needed family support. Further, with limited access to healthcare and medication, older people’s chronic conditions are going untreated. This causes them to face heightened impacts of the lack of nutrition and hydration facing all Palestinians in Gaza.

In addition to these physical challenges, 77 percent indicated that sadness, anxiety, loneliness, or insomnia has affected their well-being and appetites. One individual described the devastating impacts of these overlapping factors, saying:

Life in Beit Lahia has been transformed by war. Once, neighbours cared for each other; now survival consumes everyone. At nearly ninety or perhaps a hundred years old, my knees no longer carry me. The war has stripped away dignity, leaving me dependent and unseen.

The report also finds that these heightened impacts are experienced more acutely by older women and older people with disabilities. Women were more likely to report health conditions, difficulties preparing food, greater weight loss, and mental health impacts. Those with disabilities faced heightened difficulties with long waits and crowds when seeking aid, and were less likely overall to have received assistance and medications than those without disabilities. This is consistent with prior broader studies on distinct human rights challenges for older women and the impact of armed conflict on people with disabilities.

This is not the first time these issues have been recognized. The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, published a protection brief in June 2025 detailing the heightened risks older people face during the conflict. The stories in this report speak to a lack of food, shelter, mobility, healthcare, and being sent to distant locations for aid, which are inaccessible for those with mobility concerns. UNRWA also highlighted the importance of elders to Palestinian society, particularly their essential roles in leading communities and helping carry on the collective memory of Palestinian history.

These distinct struggles occur against the backdrop of what the UN finds to be genocide committed by Israel. Rights organizations have previously warned of “weaponized hunger” policies and restrictions against life-saving aid potentially constituting war crimes.

Guevara-Rosas calls on Israeli authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” lift the aid blockade to allow entry of critical supplies.

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