New storm to hit Gaza, piling on suffering for thousands of displaced

Gaza is expected to experience further suffering from hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are already unable to withstand the harsh winter weather.

Nearly all of Gaza’s two million people have been forced to live in these temporary shelters as a result of Israel’s more than two-year genocidal conflict.

According to a report released last week by Gaza’s Government Media Office, 127, 000 of the 135, 000 tents in displacement camps have been made unusable as a result of recent extreme weather.

According to Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, who was reporting from Gaza City on Monday, “the reality on the ground tells a very painful and grim story.”

“Hundreds of thousands of displaced families are still living in torn tents and roofless homes that have been subjected to the cold, rain, and freezing nights.”

According to Abu Azzoum, Israeli restrictions directly cause this suffering because Israel hasn’t been allowing the “entry of prefabricated mobile housing units and the building materials that are essential for winter protection” or the flow of desperately needed basic humanitarian aid.

Aid deliveries were supposed to be significantly increased under a United States-brokered ceasefire, which came into force on October 10 and which Israel has violated nearly daily. At least 600 trucks a day are scheduled to enter Gaza to meet the needs of the population.

Since the ceasefire, only 145 trucks have reportedly entered Gaza, according to the government media office.

Palestinians have been “improvising by reinforcing their makeshift tents with plastic sheets, keeping themselves fully clothed, and burning scraps inside the makeshift tents to use them for heating because fuel supplies and heating mechanisms along the Strip are unaffordable,” according to Abu Azzoum.

Winter in Palestine can be “very brutal,” he said, but what makes this one even worse is that it comes after months of “displacement, hunger, and exhaustion.”

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 25 people have died as a result of Israeli bombing, which has also caused the relentless destruction of previously damaged buildings.

The harsh winter conditions “are among the most affected” by the elderly, the sick, and the children, according to Abu Azzoum.

According to a report released last week by the Government Media Office, 21 children have died as a result of cold exposure.

In a statement, it stated that “all the victims were Palestinians who had been forced to flee their homes.”

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza reported last week that hospitals across the country have been seeing an increase in patients with cold-related illnesses, particularly children, and that the organization has received hundreds of calls for help from people with extreme cold.