Nearly 55,000 Gaza families affected by most recent rains: UN
A spokesperson for UN chief Guterres says those families have had their belongings and shelters damaged or destroyed by the storm hitting the Palestinian enclave.
“The rainstorm has also damaged dozens of child-friendly spaces, disrupting or suspending activities related to child protection,” Farhan Haq told reporters in New York.
“The disruption has affected approximately 30,000 children across Gaza. Urgent repairs are needed to ensure these activities can resume without delay.”
UN calls for ‘urgent, unrestricted access’ to Gaza
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says without that “lifesaving shelter assistance cannot reach people at scale” in Gaza without “urgent, unrestricted access”.
“Winter storms are overwhelming displaced families in Gaza,” the agency said.
As we’ve been reporting, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian families are struggling amid freezing winter temperatures and storms that have unleashed fierce winds and heavy rain on their makeshift shelters.
The UN has said it has tents, blankets and other needed supplies ready to enter the Strip, but Israel continues to block crossings.
So many calls, nothing changes on the ground. Why do countries bother to fund the UN when they ignore everything the UN stands for anyway...
UN, aid groups urge Israel to end ‘impediments’ to humanitarian work
The so-called Humanitarian Country Team in the occupied Palestinian territory – a group of UN agencies and NGOs – has warned that Israeli restrictions “continue to undermine humanitarian operations … or risk the collapse of the humanitarian response, particularly in the Gaza Strip”.
Those impediments include a new Israeli registration process for international NGOs (INGOs) that the country team said “relies on vague, arbitrary, and highly politicized criteria”.
The new system also “imposes requirements that humanitarian organizations cannot meet without violating international legal obligations or compromising core humanitarian principles”, it said.
“Under the current framework, dozens of INGOs face deregistration by December 31, 2025, followed by the forced closure of operations within 60 days.”
The country team warned that the closure of those organisations will have a “catastrophic impact” on Palestinian access to essential services in Gaza because INGOs run or support field hospitals, emergency shelters and other critical infrastructure in the enclave.
“If INGOs are forced to stop operations, 1 in 3 health facilities in Gaza will close,” it added.
Israeli fire injures two Palestinians in Gaza City
Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that Israeli gunfire wounded two people in the Tuffah neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City.
Gaza civil defence warns temperatures set to drop ‘significantly’
A spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza says “the bitter cold threatens the lives of young children who lack shelter and heating” in the bombarded enclave.
“What we are experiencing now in the Gaza Strip is a true humanitarian catastrophe. Save the children of Gaza before the cold claims them,” Mahmoud Basal said in a short statement shared on Telegram.
A Palestinian infant froze to death in Gaza this week after going to hospital with hypothermia.
