Currently Online 
Aid finally reaches Gaza but children’s needs are not being met – Save the Children
Some aid trucks prevented for months from entering Gaza by the Israeli military have now reached the territory, yet much more needs to be done, Save the Children’s CEO Inger Ashing has told Al Jazeera.
“The needs are not met, not even close,” Ashing said from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. “We need to do much, much more to ensure that children here have access to their basic needs, including water, food, shelter and medicines.”
Living conditions in Gaza are ‘dangerous’: UNICEF
Tess Ingram, UNICEF’s communications manager, has told Al Jazeera from Gaza that she met families yesterday that were building makeshift shelters on top of the rubble of what used to be their homes.
“They were using pieces of plywood with sheets of tarpaulin. I hope that it’s still standing,” she said, adding she was particularly concerned about children’s wellbeing.
“For kids in these conditions, it’s frightening not only to be outside, exposed to the cold, but also very dangerous. We’ve had a number of children in Gaza die of hypothermia. It’s clear that when you meet with families, they don’t have what they need to protect them[selves],” she said.
Ingram said the needs of the people in Gaza are “immense” and called for ramping up emergency relief efforts fast, adding that requires the delivery of more than 600 aid trucks a day. “But the needs are far greater than that.
“The main things that people are asking me for are tents, tarpaulin and water. The water system has been decimated and people are really struggling to find safe water to drink,” she said.
Ingram also outlined the challenges of Israel’s “dual use” blockade – preventing access to building materials like pipes, steel and cement – for aid workers. “One of the biggest challenges we’re having is with items on the ‘dual use’ list. We need those for repairs – for example, pipes for water, generators to run pumps, and then fuel to run generators.”
Winter storm wiping out tents of displaced Palestinians in north Gaza
What we’ve been seeing in the past hour is that as soon as the rain stopped, just briefly, people came out and they tried desperately to rebuild tents damaged due to the strong wind, and the air depression, that is hitting the Gaza Strip.
[The tents] were destroyed, offering them no shelter and no safe place for them to stay in.
The wind was very strong and the storm got very aggressive as of the early hours of this morning, uprooting many of the tents in the northern part of the Strip, particularly in Jabalia and farther north in Beit Lahiya, where the Israeli military, because of the destruction of many of the residential buildings, created a vacuum for the air to move at very high speed.
Those tents, which were set up by the displaced Palestinians as soon as they returned to their areas [in north Gaza], are made of very simple items, wood, nylon and pieces of plastic, and are not very stable.
Gaza Civil Defence says Israel not allowing essential equipment into Gaza
In comments to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic, a spokesperson for the rescue organisation says that Israel is not adhering to the humanitarian protocol laid out in the ceasefire agreement.
“No mobile homes or heavy equipment entered the sector … There is Israeli intransigence and procrastination in bringing equipment into the Strip”, the spokesperson said.
As we’ve been reporting all day, there is a severe lack of shelter in the Gaza Strip as it endures a very harsh winter storm due to damage to a staggering percentage of residential buildings by Israel’s war.
Heavy machinery is desperately needed to clear roads and remove the rubble of destroyed buildings, but multiple organisations and authorities in Gaza are accusing Israel of prohibiting its entry into the Strip.
“Mediators must intervene immediately to persuade Israel to allow the entry of equipment and fuel,” the Civil Defence spokesperson continued.
“The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is bitter and life has come to a standstill due to the intransigence of the occupation … After the northern residents returned to their areas, they were forced to live with the corpses.”
Essay Pro