“Stop the war and let me return to my home, even if it is destroyed.”

In early November, Ground Truth Solutions (GTS) and Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) set about talking to people in Gaza to find out what the humanitarian situation looked like from their perspective. Access challenges for large agencies are well known, but how have communities been supporting each other? What does aid access look like to people on the ground, and what are people’s main priorities? What do they want the international community to know?

Conditions for data collection and analysis are dangerous and volatile, meaning robust data representing the voices of civilians in Gaza has been incredibly difficult to obtain. Still, the team of professional enumerators were able to collect the data while committing to professional standards of sampling, interviewing and data management. This report contains insight generously provided by 613 adult Gazans between late December 2023 and 2 January 2024, via a survey questionnaire, with 20 in-depth interviews and three case studies conducted to complement and enrich the analysis. The aim is to repeat this work over time to ensure aid and support priorities are in line with those of the communities most affected by the crisis.

Key findings:

• People are living in constant fear.  
• Critical survival needs are not being met, and people are in desperate need of clean water and food. 
• Coping abilities are way down. 
• Very few people know how to access institutional (formal) aid, as conditions for targeting, distribution and information-sharing are bordering on impossible. 
• People are sharing resources among themselves. 
• The prospect of a permanent loss of people’s homes is causing massive anxiety. 
• Trusted information is very hard to find, but most people are turning to friends and family or the radio for news and information and people are wary of much of the information they consume.