Winter in Gaza: displaced families face harsh conditions<\/p>\n
Winter in Gaza can be very harsh. Cold winds sweep through the hundreds of thousands of makeshift tents<\/strong> where families are forced to live, often accompanied by heavy rainfall that transforms camps into muddy fields.\u00a0<\/p>\n These tents, built from canvas and wood, offer no insulation, pavement, heating and electricity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Meet Mervat<\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s nothing, not even a wall to lean on,\u2019 said Mervat<\/strong>, a mother of 5 from Rafah. \u2018Sometimes it\u2019s cold, and it takes a toll on the children. It\u2019s just fabric; there\u2019s just not much safety.\u2019<\/p>\n Mervat<\/strong> is one of the nearly 1.9 million Palestinians who have been displaced since October 2023, many of them multiple times. She and her 5 children now live in a tent in Khan Younis<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Before the war, Mervat\u2019s life was modest but stable. Her husband worked as a builder, earning enough to provide for their family.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018We lived in a house that sheltered us,\u2019 Mervat<\/strong> recalled. \u2018It wasn\u2019t big or fancy, but it held us together.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That stability vanished when displacement orders came without warning. \u2018I spent half the day crying after they told us to leave,\u2019 she said. \u2018My daughters, God bless them, gathered a few clothes. We barely managed to carry 2 bags and walked.\u2019<\/p>\n Mervat<\/strong> and her family have now been displaced 9 times. They currently shelter in a displacement camp, surrounded by thousands of other families. Mervat\u2019s husband has been struggling to find work for months.\u00a0<\/p>\n Each day revolves around securing food, water and warmth<\/strong>. Mervat\u2019s son regularly walks long distances to fetch water. Her daughters wait in long lines for food distributions, sometimes coming back empty-handed as supplies run out.\u00a0<\/p>\n The humanitarian crisis in Gaza<\/p>\n Humanitarian needs in Gaza are at their highest.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Over 92% of homes have been damaged or destroyed. Families, including those with infants, live entirely exposed to the elements.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n Access to food, clean water, and health care remains extremely limited.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Children are amongst the most impacted: assessment conducted by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) conducted in August 2025 found that 1 in 3 young children had gone an entire day without food in the previous 24 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n In December 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in analysis found that acute food insecurity and malnutrition remained at critically high levels, especially amongst children.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winter in Gaza: displaced families face harsh conditions Winter in Gaza can be very harsh. Cold winds sweep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,207134,12916],"class_list":{"0":"post-683945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-food-aid","13":"tag-humanitarian-aid"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115863886779804562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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