Israel classifies tents, tarpaulins as potential weapons as Palestinians in Gaza brace for winter."
“Every raindrop that falls fills their hearts with fear.”
The Israelis have classified tents, tarpaulins, timber, cement, tools, rope, duct tape and other materials used to build tents or repair shelters as “dual-use items” and are allowing only 15 trucks a week carrying such items to enter the Gaza Strip, as Palestinians in the besieged enclave struggle to find adequate shelter with winter approaching amid the ongoing Western-funded Israeli genocide.
“A minimum of 500 truckloads of Israeli-designated dual-use shelter items are in the pipeline,” the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said in a statement on Monday. “At the current pace, under the best possible conditions, it would take more than seven months to bring in these materials.”
Winters in Gaza have been extremely harsh for Palestinians struggling to survive Israeli tank shells, bullets, drones and warplanes while sheltering in their ramshackle tents and damaged buildings over the past three years. This will be their fourth consecutive winter amid extremely harsh conditions, with dozens of infants having frozen to death because of inadequate nutrition and a lack of warmth in flimsy plastic tents.
“Palestinians in Gaza cannot be expected to survive another winter in worn and torn tents that were never designed to withstand these conditions. This is not an unavoidable natural disaster — it is a manmade humanitarian crisis because life-saving shelter aid is blocked by the occupying power,” NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland said.
“Israel has obligations to facilitate humanitarian relief, and UN member states have an obligation to press for all crossings to be opened for all aid. Donors must urgently fund our shelter response.”
According to the NRC, nearly 300,000 families will need shelter assistance this winter. However, donors have provided or pledged only 34 percent of the $283 million needed to provide the minimum shelter response this winter, leaving a deficit of $186.6 million.
Current stocks and supplies are sufficient to provide only partial shelter and household-item assistance to approximately 52,000 families. This leaves around 250,000 families in an extremely precarious situation, facing another catastrophic winter as colder weather sets in.
Furthermore, an estimated 950,000 people are living at sites at medium or high risk of flooding.
“Two-thirds of Gaza’s population is living in tents and makeshift shelters made of materials that deteriorate after only a few months,” the NRC statement added. “This has trapped humanitarians in an endless cycle of replacing worn-out tents and tarpaulins.”
With Israel preventing reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and having reduced nearly all of the territory to rubble, survivors of the genocide have few housing options. While the vast majority are living in dilapidated tents, many families are residing in damaged buildings, more than 2,000 of which have been classified by Gaza authorities as being at risk of collapse.
Yet, with extremely limited alternatives and Israel occupying 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, families continue to call these dangerous sites home.
“Winter in a tent is not merely a season, but a nightmare,” said Nesma Al-Sallaq, NRC’s shelter coordinator in Gaza. “Parents tell us they can’t sleep at night because they’re so worried about keeping their children warm and safe from flooding. Every raindrop that falls fills their hearts with fear.”