Report of a Field Assessment of Health Conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

This report is a summary of the assessments carried out in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between December 2015 and February 2016 by five independent experts, recruited by the WHO Office for West Bank and Gaza Strip in cooperation with counterparts from the Ministry of Health, with the overarching aim of reporting on the health conditions of the Palestinian population through a field assessment in line with decision WHA68(8). The assessment report complements the Secretariat's report.1 WHO through its Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, sent a letter, dated 20 December 2015, to the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva to provide information on the planned field assessment and to seek support from and collaboration with the Israeli authorities; mission members had a consultative meeting with representatives of the Israeli Ministry of Health on 14 December 2015. Over a period of 44 days in December 2015 and in early 2016, the experts interviewed 114 key informants at locations in the West Bank and Jerusalem (61), Gaza Strip (46), Tel Aviv/West Jerusalem (5) and Amman (1) including health facilities, ministries, field sites and offices of governments and international and national nongovernmental organizations.