Category World News

Winter came to Gaza last month with a violent storm. I woke up at night to a disaster. Our tent was flooded with water which had transformed our “floor” into a shallow pool. The mattresses and pillows were completely soaked, cooking pots were submerged, the clothes were drenched, and even our bags— which function as our “closets”—were filled with water. Nothing inside remained dry.

As I tried to understand what was happening, I suddenly heard children crying at the entrance of our tent. I opened it quickly and found three children from the neighbouring tents, their lips blue from the cold, with their mother trembling behind them saying, “We are completely soaked… the rain leaked inside and the water reached everywhere.”

The same tragic scene was repeated all around us: women, children, and elderly people sitting in the street under the rain, their bedding drenched and their belongings scattered, while confusion and cries filled the air.

All 1.4 million displaced Palestinians who lack proper shelter suffered that day—people with no protection against the weather or its sudden storms.

For us, it took two full days for our belongings to dry because the sun barely appeared; everything stayed cold and damp. We didn’t move to another place—we stayed where we were, trying to salvage whatever we could, because there was simply nowhere else to go.

Only a week later, an even stronger winter storm arrived with severe rainfall. Tents were flooded again; little children froze in the rain again.

This week, when Storm Byron hit, we were flooded once again. Despite all our efforts to reinforce the tents, secure them tightly, and bring in stronger tarps, nothing worked. The winds were fiercer, the rain heavier, and the water pushed its way inside from every direction. The ground no longer absorbed anything. The water began rising rapidly beneath our feet, turning the entire area into a swamp.

According to the authorities, the strong winds destroyed at least 27,000 tents. These are 27,000 families who already struggled and now have nothing, no shelter, nowhere to hide from the rain and cold.

The rain also brought down damaged homes where people had been sheltering. Every time there is a storm or strong wind, we hear the sound of falling debris and concrete pillars from badly damaged buildings near us. This time, the situation was so bad that 11 people were killed by collapsed buildings.

It is clear that after everything we have endured, we – like other displaced Palestinians – cannot survive a third winter in these harsh conditions. We survived two winters in displacement, living in tents that protected neither from cold nor rain, waiting with exhausted patience for a ceasefire that would end our suffering. The ceasefire finally came, but relief did not. We remain in the same place, with bodies drained by malnutrition and illness, under tents worn out by the sun and wind.

We are a family of seven living in a tent that is four by four metres (13 feet by 13 feet). Among us are two children aged five and 10 and our grandmother, aged 80. We, the adults, can push through the cold and hardship. But how can the elderly and children bear what we live every day?

We sleep on mattresses pressed directly against the ground, with cold seeping in from below and above, with only two blankets that can’t shield us from the freezing nights. Everyone in the tent has two blankets each, barely enough to offer temporary warmth. There is no source of heating—no electricity, no heater—just tired bodies trying to share whatever warmth remains.

My grandmother cannot tolerate the cold at all. I watch her shiver through the night, her hand on her chest as if trying to hold herself together. All we can do is pile every blanket we have on top of her and watch anxiously until she is able to fall asleep.

Many people in Gaza live in conditions far worse than ours.

Most families who just want a modest tent over their heads cannot afford one. The price of tents can go as high as $1,000; the rent one has to pay to pitch a tent on a piece of land can be as much as $500. Those who cannot pay live in the street in makeshift shelters.

Salah al-Din Street, for example, is crowded with them. Most are simply blankets hung and wrapped around small spaces for minimal privacy, offering no protection from rain or cold. With any strong gust of wind, they burst open.

There are also children living directly in the streets, sleeping on the cold ground. Many have lost their mothers or fathers during the war. When you pass by, you see them—sometimes silent, sometimes crying, sometimes searching for something to eat.

Despite repeated promises of aid and reconstruction, the trickle of supplies that entered Gaza has made almost no difference on the ground. Earlier this month, the United Nations announced it had managed to distribute only 300 tents during November; 230,000 families received a single food parcel each.

We did not receive any food parcel—there are simply too many people in need, and the quantities are far too small for everyone to access. Even if we had received one, its contents wouldn’t have lasted us longer than a week or two.

Food prices continue to be high. Nutritious items like meat and eggs are either unavailable or cost too much. Most families have not eaten a proper protein meal in months.

There is no mass campaign to remove rubble or level the ground so people can pitch their tents due to an equipment shortage. No steps have been taken to provide permanent housing for families.

All of this means we now face a terrifying possibility: that life in a tent—one that can be flooded or ripped apart by the wind at any moment—may become our long-term reality. This is an unbearable thought.

During the bombardment, we lived with the constant fear of death, and perhaps the intensity of the war overshadowed everything else—the cold, the rain, the tents shaking above our heads. But now, after the mass bombing has stopped, we are facing the full ugliness of Gaza’s “new normal”.

I fear this winter will be much worse for Gaza. With no heating, no real shelter, and the weather getting worse each day, we are likely to see many deaths among the children, the elderly and the chronically ill. Already, the first deaths from hypothermia were reported – babies Rahaf Abu Jazar  and Taim al-Khawaja and nine-year-old Hadeel al-Masri. If the world is really committed to ending the genocide in Gaza, it needs to take real, urgent action and ensure that we have at least the basic conditions for survival: food, housing and medical care.

An Al Jazeera crew at the Thai border with Cambodia was forced to take shelter in a bunker as Cambodia shelled the village of Ban Nong Mek, in Thailand’s Sisaket province.

Civil defence crews in Gaza are racing to rescue people trapped under war-damaged buildings that have collapsed from heavy rain and strong winds during a severe winter storm.

US President Donald Trump has vowed retaliation against ISIL after an ambush near Palmyra in central Syria killed three US citizens. Trump blamed ISIL for the attack, though investigators are assessing the possibility it may have been an insider attack by a member of an allied force.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared the shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach a ‘terrorist’ attack targeting a Jewish community event. New South Wales police say at least a dozen people were killed by two gunmen at the scene.

Thailand’s sudden return to the use of force along its frontier with Cambodia is a blunt reminder of how volatile one of Southeast Asia’s most enduring territorial disputes remains. The pace of the latest escalation is startling. Only weeks earlier, leaders from both countries stood before regional and international dignitaries at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, endorsing a ceasefire framework that was presented as a political breakthrough. The symbolism was heavy, a truce blessed by regional leaders and witnessed by United States President Donald Trump meant to signal that Southeast Asia could manage its own tensions responsibly.

Yet that promise evaporated almost as soon as the delegations returned home. Bangkok’s air strikes on Cambodian positions in contested border pockets triggered immediate evacuations.

What this sequence reveals is painfully familiar. Ceasefires in this dispute have rarely been more than pauses in a long cycle of distrust. Agreements are signed in conference halls, but the frontier itself has its own rhythm – one shaped by longstanding grievances, competing national narratives and the difficulties of managing heavily armed forces operating in ambiguous terrain.

The ceasefire endorsed at the ASEAN summit was constructed as the foundation for a broader roadmap. It committed both sides to cease hostilities, halt troop movements and gradually scale down the deployment of heavy weapons near contested areas. Crucially, it tasked ASEAN with deploying monitoring teams to observe compliance.

On paper, these were sensible steps. In reality, they were grafted onto political soil that was nowhere near ready to sustain them. Both governments were operating under heightened global scrutiny and were eager to signal calm to foreign investors, but the core issues – unsettled borders, unresolved historical claims and mutual suspicions embedded in their security establishments – remained untouched.

The agreement thus functioned less as a resolution and more as a temporary show of goodwill to stave off international pressure. Its weaknesses were exposed almost immediately. The pact depended heavily on the momentum generated by the summit itself rather than on durable institutional mechanisms. High-profile witnesses can create ceremonial gravitas, but they cannot substitute for the painstaking work required to rebuild strategic trust.

Thailand and Cambodia entered the agreement with different interpretations of what compliance meant, particularly with regard to troop postures and patrol rights in disputed pockets.

More importantly, the proposed monitoring regime demanded close, real-time cooperation between two militaries that have long viewed one another through an adversarial lens. Monitoring missions can succeed only when field commanders respect their access, accept their findings and operate under harmonised rules of engagement. None of those conditions yet exists.

And hanging over all of this are domestic political considerations. In both Bangkok and Phnom Penh, leaders are acutely sensitive to accusations of weakness over territorial integrity. In an environment where nationalist sentiment can be easily inflamed, governments often act defensively – even preemptively – to avoid political backlash at home.

Historical grievances

To understand why this conflict repeatedly returns to the brink, one must situate it in its longer arc. The Thailand-Cambodia frontier reflects the legacies of colonial-era boundary-making. The French, who ruled over Cambodia until 1954, were heavily involved in delineation of the border, a process that left behind ambiguous lines and overlapping claims.

These ambiguities mattered little when both states were preoccupied with internal consolidation and Cold War upheavals. But as their institutions matured, as national narratives took firmer hold and as economic development transformed the strategic value of particular zones, the border dispute hardened.

Several of the contested areas carry deep cultural and symbolic significance, including the Preah Vihear temple, built by the Khmer Empire, which both Thailand and Cambodia claim to be successors of. In 1962, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the temple is within Cambodian territory.

When disputes erupted from 2008 to 2011, marked by exchanges of artillery fire, mass displacements and duelling legal interpretations of the ICJ ruling, the political stakes crystallised. The clashes did not just damage property and displace civilians; they embedded the border issue into the nationalist consciousness of both countries. Even periods of relative quiet in the years that followed rested on an uneasy equilibrium.

This year’s resurgence of violence follows that established pattern. Domestic politics in both capitals have entered a phase in which leaders feel compelled to demonstrate resolve. Military modernisation programmes, meanwhile, have provided both sides with more tools of coercion, even if neither desires a full-scale confrontation.

The proximity of troops in disputed pockets leaves little room for error: Routine patrols can be misread as provocations, and ambiguous movements can quickly escalate into armed responses. In such an environment, ceasefires, however well intentioned, have little chance of survival unless supported by mechanisms that address the deeper structural problems.

The fact that the ASEAN-brokered truce did not grapple directly with the border’s most contentious segments left it vulnerable. Neither Thailand nor Cambodia is prepared to accept a binding demarcation that could be interpreted domestically as giving ground. Until there is clarity – legal, cartographic and political – the zone will remain one where each side feels compelled to assert its presence.

External factors have further complicated calculations. Both countries operate in a geopolitical environment marked by larger power competition. While neither Thailand nor Cambodia seeks to internationalise the dispute, there are competing incentives to showcase autonomy, avoid external pressure or signal strategic alignment. These dynamics may not directly cause clashes, but they create a political environment in which leaders feel additional pressure to project strength.

What ASEAN must do

The implications of this escalation extend beyond the bilateral relationship. If air strikes, even calibrated ones, become normalised as tools of signalling, Southeast Asia risks sliding into a period in which hardened positions become the default posture in territorial disputes. Civilian displacements could widen. Confidence-building measures – already fragile – could evaporate outright. And the political space for diplomacy, which relies on leaders having room to manoeuvre away from maximalist rhetoric, could shrink dramatically.

ASEAN now faces a test of relevance. Symbolic diplomacy, declarations of concern and offers of “good offices” will not be enough. If the organisation wishes to demonstrate that it can manage conflicts within its ranks, it must undertake three essential steps.

First, it must insist that its monitoring missions are fully deployed and granted operational autonomy. Observers need unrestricted access to flashpoints, and their assessments must be publicly reported to reduce the temptation for either side to distort facts. Transparent monitoring will not eliminate the dispute, but it can reduce opportunities for opportunistic escalation.

Second, ASEAN should establish a standing trilateral crisis group composed of Thailand, Cambodia and the ASEAN chair. This group should be mandated to intervene diplomatically within hours of any reported incident. Timely engagement could prevent misunderstandings from hardening into military responses.

Third, ASEAN must begin laying the groundwork for a longer-term negotiation on border demarcation. This would be politically sensitive and may not yield quick breakthroughs, but a structured process supported by neutral cartographers, legal experts and historical researchers could create space for gradual movement. A slow dialogue is better than no dialogue.

The United Nations could complement, though not supplant, ASEAN’s leadership. The UN’s technical expertise in boundary disputes, its experience in managing verification processes and its capacity to support humanitarian preparation could reinforce regional efforts. Crucially, UN involvement could depoliticise highly technical issues that often become entangled with nationalist rhetoric.

Yet none of these institutional tools will matter unless political leaders in Bangkok and Phnom Penh are prepared to confront the past honestly and consider compromises that may be unpopular. Sustainable peace requires more than a respite from violence; it demands constituencies willing to accept that historical grievances must be resolved through negotiation rather than through force or symbolic posturing.

The collapse of the recent ceasefire should not be viewed merely as another unfortunate episode but as a sign that Southeast Asia’s security architecture remains incomplete. The region has made impressive progress in building economic integration and diplomatic habits, but when it comes to managing high-stakes territorial disputes, structural weaknesses persist. Without meaningful investment in transparency, shared rules and credible enforcement mechanisms, even the most celebrated agreements will remain vulnerable to political winds.

Thailand and Cambodia now stand at a crossroads. They can either continue down a path where periodic escalations are normalised, or they can choose to engage in a process, even a long and imperfect one, that leads towards a final settlement. The costs of the former would be borne by civilians, border communities and regional stability. The benefits of the latter would extend far beyond their shared frontier.