Costly essentials: Secondhand coats and shirts for sale in Khan Younis. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
A YEAR into the war in the Gaza Strip, the prices of ready-made tents and supplies to build even flimsy shelters are soaring. Warm blankets, clothes and firewood are hard to get or prohibitively expensive. Finding a vacant apartment is out of the question for most displaced civilians. And many have no income at all.
So people eking out an existence in tattered tents and makeshift shelters across the enclave are bracing for a tough, rainy winter. This one, many expect, will be worse than the last.
Most of the roughly two million people in Gaza have been displaced at least once by the war, compounding the hardships of a population enduring waves of Israeli bombardment and widespread lawlessness.
Israel recently issued yet more evacuation orders for people in the north of Gaza, at the same time its expanded military operations in the south resulted in the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar but little movement toward an end to the war.
Mahmoud Abu Helal, a 33-year-old pharmacist, has been sharing a leaky self-made tent with 12 relatives since he fled the southern city of Rafah in May, when the Israeli ground invasion there began. He thought they would be able to return to their homes in a few days, he said, so they only brought summer clothes.
But Israel’s military operations in Rafah have stretched on, and more than five months later, he, his parents, his wife, two children, two brothers and their families are all still living in a tent camp in Muwasi, outside the city. There, they struggle to get by and worry about a winter that he said “feels harsh already.” Winter in Gaza brings rain and wind, especially at night, and temperatures can drop to the low 4.4°Celsius.
“Our tent is not protecting us against rain – it keeps leaking all the time,” Abu Helal said, adding, “Without winter clothes, mainly coats, I am in real trouble.”
For months, his main challenge was finding food and water. “Now,” he said, “I need to prioritise clothes.” But even secondhand clothing is now largely unaffordable in Gaza, he said. “This is not getting any easier.”
Earlier this month, the Israeli military called on Palestinians to evacuate swaths of the northern Gaza Strip, saying that its forces were operating “with great force” in the area. It urged residents and the displaced to head to the southern part of the territory, where tens of thousands of people have already crammed into Muwasi, a once sparsely populated beachside strip.
Israeli officials had declared Muwasi to be safer for civilians, but it continues to be hit by airstrikes as the military attacks sites it believes to contain Hamas fighters.
While the new evacuation orders will put more people on the move in northern Gaza, some residents said they had no intention of moving to the south, citing the lack of basic necessities there.
“If we go to the south, we’ll be in a tent,” said Saher Abu Dagheem, 38, a resident of Jabalia. “We won’t have the stuff we need there.”
The Norwegian Refugee Council said last month that more than 1 million displaced Palestinians in central and southern Gaza urgently needed kits to prepare or repair tents and shelters before winter arrives. Many of the materials provided by aid agencies can no longer be used because of wear and tear, and few new tents have entered Gaza in recent months, the aid group said.
Israel regulates the entrance of all goods into Gaza and restricts the import of what it calls “dual use” items: civilian products and supplies that could also be used for military purposes. Tents do not fall into this category, according to Cogat, the Israeli military agency coordinating aid delivery.
The lack of aid flowing into Gaza more generally, though, is of increasing concern to aid groups and others. Israel’s Supreme Court has demanded answers from its government on the situation, and the Biden administration recently warned that a failure to allow more aid into Gaza could have consequences for US military assistance to Israel.
Manufactured tents are now a luxury, according to Juliette Touma, the spokesperson for the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. Unable to afford them – tents now sell for hundreds of dollars each, according to residents of Gaza – most people have had to improvise shelters using whatever materials they can find.
Hazem Hassouna, who said his family has been displaced six times, was waiting for aid groups like UNRWA to provide blankets, tarps and tents. He does not yet know what, if anything, they will receive.
Hassouna, who is from Gaza City in the north, now shares a tent with his wife and four children in central Gaza. Their tent is partially open to the sky, he said, and would flood easily in heavy winter rains. To prevent that, he would need a tarp that costs about US$200 – a price he says he simply cannot afford.
“We can’t buy food,” he said. “So how can we buy a tarp?”
Hassouna’s family uses firewood for cooking and heat, but that, too, has become expensive – when he can find any at all. The family is also short on blankets, with two family members having to share one thin blanket between them.
“I will be drowning in winter, seriously,” he said. “When it’s about to rain, I say, ‘May God save us from this humiliation.’” — ©2024 The New York Times Company
