Gaza's Winter Crisis: Systematic Destruction of Shelter Leaves 650,000 Children Exposed to Hypothermia

94% of Gaza needs shelter aid, but winter provisions cover a fraction of demand. Children are dying of hypothermia while families choose between food, clothing, and tarpaulins.

Four-month-old Mohammed Saad sleeps in thin summer clothes inside a tarp shelter shared by 18 family members in Gaza City. His mother Amira, 27, borrowed a single warm garment from a neighbour. Recent heavy rain flooded the shelter while the family slept, soaking every mattress and blanket they owned. This is not an edge case. It is the median condition for displaced families across Gaza.

The numbers define a humanitarian system in collapse. OCHA reports 94 percent of Gaza's population urgently needs shelter assistance. Some 65 percent of households live in tents or makeshift shelters. An estimated 650,000 children need winter aid including warm clothing and blankets. By September, aid agencies had secured winter clothing for just 9,000 households and bedding for 50,000 — a fraction of the need. UNICEF is seeking $97.5 million for its 2026-2027 winter response targeting 540,000 children and families across Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Children are already dying. Nine-month-old Kinan Ahmed Raqiq died of hypothermia after his father woke to find the infant's skin had turned blue. At least 11 children died of hypothermia last winter, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health. UNICEF warned on November 9 that flooding had affected more than 106,000 people, with some 950,000 displaced Palestinians living in flood-prone areas. These deaths are not weather events. They are the predictable consequence of destroyed housing stock, restricted aid access, and collapsed economic activity. The economic machinery that might cushion winter has been obliterated. Amal al-Maydana, 46, is raising seven children alone — her husband Hamza was killed by an Israeli quadcopter in January 2025, her eldest son Haitham by a sniper in November of the same year. Displaced six times, she lost her home, land, and car. She has no heating equipment. Anas Hamad, displaced from Beit Hanoun, formerly ran a supermarket employing his four brothers. All five are now unemployed university graduates. His five-year-old daughter asked for a new shirt; he pointed to the hand-me-down she was already wearing. He frames his daily calculus plainly: food, warm clothes, or tarpaulins — pick one. The market tells the same story from the supply side. Mohammed Abu Shanar, a 25-year-old shop owner in Gaza City's Rimal market, reports that winter tracksuits sell at 40-50 shekels ($12.60-$15.70) — prices most customers cannot pay. He invested over 20,000 shekels ($6,265) in winter stock; after three weeks he has recovered less than 5,000 shekels ($1,570). He attributes high prices to Israeli restrictions on goods entering Gaza and wholesaler markups. The supply chain is not broken — it is being strangled. More than three years into Israel's war on Gaza, more than 74,600 Palestinians have been killed and over 176,000 wounded. Nearly two million people have been displaced, many repeatedly. The destruction of homes, infrastructure, and livelihoods has created a population with no reserves — no savings, no housing stock, no functioning economy — entering winter in tents that leak when it rains. Unemployment and rising prices have made basic necessities unaffordable. The structural picture is unambiguous: a population stripped of shelter, income, and economic infrastructure faces lethal winter conditions with aid covering a single-digit percentage of demonstrated need. Every layer of resilience — housing, employment, savings, supply chains, medical infrastructure — has been systematically degraded. The gap between need and provision is not closing. It is widening.