Winter is approaching Gaza, but it is not arriving as an ordinary season. For a population already crushed by continuous bombardment, acute hunger, siege, and repeated displacement, rain and cold are becoming another front in Israel’s genocide. This is because Palestinians have been deliberately left with almost nothing to protect them when storms arrive.
Across the Strip, innocent families are living in torn tents, damaged buildings, overcrowded shelters, and low-lying camps where relentless flooding is expected. These risks have also been mapped by numerous international humanitarian agencies. Yet the materials and support needed to repair shelters, reinforce camps, and protect families remain blocked, delayed, or insufficient. This is what turns winter from a weather event into a genocidal crime.
Tents That Were Never Meant to Become Homes
Although a tent is supposed to be temporary, in Gaza, it has become the forced architecture of survival. Families who once had homes, kitchens, schools and neighborhoods now live under plastic sheets, patched fabric and makeshift frames that cannot withstand months and even a few days of rain, wind and cold.
The International Organization for Migration has warned that nearly two million people in Gaza need shelter support before winter, while only 17% of winter shelter needs have been met. It also warned that El Niño could bring heavier rainfall, raising flood risks in a territory whose drainage systems have already been badly damaged.
This is not only a slight discomfort. Wet bedding, leaking tents and cold nights can become life-threatening, especially for babies, elderly people, pregnant women and the sick. So, when people are forced to sleep on the ground in shelters that cannot keep out water, winter becomes another form of deliberate violence.
Floods Are Not a Natural Surprise
Humanitarian groups already understand where the danger lies. OCHA reported that more than 13% of Gaza’s population is living in flood-prone displacement sites or unsafe buildings. They also elaborated that around 279,000 people are sheltering in 400 flood-prone displacement sites, while more than 2,300 remain in buildings that require demolition.
These huge numbers matter because they prove that the coming disaster is predictable. If camps flood, tents collapse, children fall ill from cold and contaminated water, no one can claim surprise. The sites have been identified, and the people at risk have been counted.
Gaza’s winter has become life-threatening because Israel’s genocide has destroyed the conditions needed to survive it. Roads are broken, drainage channels are blocked, homes are rubble, sewage systems are damaged, and families have been pushed from one place to another until displacement itself became permanent.
Disease Will Follow the Rain
Unfortunately, rain in Gaza falls on overcrowded tent camps, broken sewage networks, rubble-filled streets, and areas where clean water is still scarce. That makes flooding a public health emergency, not just a shelter problem.
OCHA also reported that communicable diseases continue to dominate health consultations in Gaza, including acute respiratory infections, skin infections, and acute watery diarrhea. These illnesses spread faster where people live close together, lack clean water and have little access to sanitation.
Moreover, it is evident that winter can deepen all of this. Cold and wet conditions can weaken children already suffering from acute hunger. Floodwater can carry waste into living areas. Families may ultimately be forced to keep wet clothes and blankets because they have no replacements. For people with chronic illness or disability, even reaching a clinic can become harder.
This is how a deliberate genocide operates beyond the bomb. It destroys the systems that keep people alive, then leaves them exposed to every season and every preventable danger.
Israel’s Restrictions Turn Weather Into a Weapon
The most significant fact about Gaza’s winter crisis is that it is not caused by weather alone. It is actually caused by a genocidal policy. The Norwegian Refugee Council has warned that Israeli restrictions continue to block critical shelter materials such as timber, cement and metal sheeting. It said two-thirds of Gaza’s population is living in tents and makeshift shelters made from materials that deteriorate within months.
NRC also said Israel allows only 15 trucks per week carrying so-called dual-use items from Jordan, while at least 500 truckloads of shelter materials are in the pipeline. At that pace, it could take more than seven months to bring in the materials needed now.
This is the heart of the crisis. Palestinians are facing winter unprotected because Israel controls what enters Gaza and restricts the items needed to make life survivable.
Another Shape of Genocide
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has taken many known and unknown forms: bombardment, starvation, mass displacement, destruction of hospitals, attacks on schools and the crushing of civic life. But winter adds another form. It threatens Palestinians through exposure, flooding, disease, and the denial of shelter.
The world has the data, the warnings, and it knows which camps may flood and how many families need help. It also knows that shelter materials are being blocked, and if children freeze, tents collapse, and disease spreads through flooded camps, those deaths will not be accidents.
