CAFOD, the Catholic overseas development agency for England and Wales, has issued a stark warning: aid reserves in Gaza are running out, violence is intensifying, and the international community must act now.

In a press release published on 23 March 2026, CAFOD called the ongoing conflict a 'scandal' and joined Pope Leo XIV's call for an immediate ceasefire across the region. The charity reports a significant increase in violence and displacement in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, with humanitarian organisations struggling to maintain even basic operations.

CAFOD's Director of International Programmes said the situation had become 'unconscionable': 'We are watching people die from preventable causes — not because we lack the resources to help them, but because the political will to stop the fighting is absent. This is a moral failure of the highest order.'

The agency highlighted the particular vulnerability of children, older people, and those with disabilities, who face the greatest barriers to accessing whatever aid does get through. CAFOD's local partners in Gaza and Lebanon have continued to operate under extraordinary pressure, distributing food, medicine, and shelter materials wherever access permits.

CAFOD has been working in the region for decades, and its networks of local Catholic Caritas partners give it reach into communities that larger international organisations sometimes cannot access. That local knowledge and trust, the charity argues, is precisely what makes an immediate ceasefire so critical — without it, even the most determined aid effort cannot reach those who need it most.

The charity is urging supporters to contact their MPs, to pray, and to give to its Middle East Emergency Appeal. 'The people of Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank have not been forgotten by God,' the statement concluded. 'They must not be forgotten by us.'