In brief
As heavy winter rains begin to impact Gaza, humanitarian organizations are calling for immediate action to provide shelter and essential supplies for approximately 1.5 million displaced Palestinians. Jan Egeland from the Norwegian Refugee Council warns that without urgent aid, many lives are at risk this winter. Existing shelters are failing under the rain, leading to illness and further suffering, with calls for international support growing louder.
Aid agencies have reiterated calls for Israel to allow more tents and urgently needed supplies into Gaza after the first heavy winter rainfall, saying more than a quarter of a million families need emergency help with shelters.
We are going to lose lives this winter. Children, families will perish, says Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
With a majority of the population displaced by two years of devastating conflict, most Gazans now live in tents, many of them makeshift. They are currently dealing with flooding from a winter storm that began recently.
Concerns about a potential health crisis are rising as rainwater is mingling with sewage, increasing the risk for disease outbreaks.
Fatima Hamdona, a resident of Gaza City, expressed her despair: My children are already sick and look at what happened to our tent. We don't have food - the flour got all wet. Where do we go? There's no shelter for us to go to now.
The situation is reflected across Gaza, where displaced families are struggling to cope with the rains. Reports indicate that many tents provided by humanitarian organizations have been stolen or are now sold on the black market, exacerbating the shelter crisis.
The NRC reports that approximately 260,000 families are in urgent need of shelter but aid delivery has been severely hampered by bureaucratic issues and restrictions on supplies, particularly concerning those classified as dual-use by Israeli authorities. Despite claims by the Israeli government of coordinating aid responses, many essential items remain blocked.
As winter progresses, activists and aid organizations continue to urge international support to facilitate the delivery of vital supplies, highlighting that immediate needs must be addressed before long-term solutions can be discussed.
