Winter in Gaza Food and shelter in short supply as first storm strikes

Everyone knew what was coming. But there was little the inhabitants of the tent cities that crowd the shore of southern Gaza could do as the storm approached.

- Jason Burke Jerusalem Seham Tantesh Gaza

Sabah al-Breem, 62, was sitting with one of her daughters and several grandchildren in their current home - a makeshift construction of tarpaulins and salvaged wood - when the wind and the driving rain broke across Gaza last week.

“Everything collapsed ... We repaired our shelter but in the night it fell down again under the heavy rain. All our belongings were soaked. The day the winds blew was a black day for us,” said Breem, originally from Khan Younis but displaced multiple times since the start of the war in October 2023.

This week the half million or so Palestinians living in al-Mawasi, a cramped coastal zone in southern Gaza, are bracing for a grim winter. For many it will be the third they have faced after being displaced during the conflict.

Last week’s storm revealed how more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, though they survived the two-year war, still face a humanitarian crisis.

Shelter is the most pressing need, aid agencies say. Most homes in Gaza have been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by successive Israeli offensives, or lie east of the new “yellow line” that divides the territory into a zone under Israeli military control and one under de facto Hamas authority.

There is nowhere for the displaced to go. In the aftermath of the storm, barefoot children splashed in muddy puddles as women made tea outside under dark clouds. Some tried to shelter in destroyed buildings, even those at risk of collapse, with gaping holes covered by pieces of plastic.

Food comes a close second in terms of priorities for those in al-Mawasi. Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire deal called for “full aid” to be sent into Gaza, but though more has been reaching the devastated territory, residents and humanitarian officials say quantities are grossly insufficient.