The bleak humanitarian scene in Gaza deepens as winter approaches, with the blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid, including supplies from United Nations agencies, still firmly in place.
In this context, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) revealed on Saturday that shelter materials and winter supplies designated for displaced families remain stored in its warehouses in Jordan and Egypt, but are barred from entering Gaza due to Israeli restrictions.
The UN agency explained that the suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced people is worsening as the cold sets in, while torn tents and makeshift shelters are incapable of withstanding harsh weather conditions. Although these materials are available and ready for shipment, political and military decisions are obstructing their entry in a flagrant violation of the right to shelter and humanitarian protection.
The blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza for over 18 years constitutes a form of collective punishment and a clear breach of international humanitarian law. Depriving civilians of essential supplies and aid, particularly during winter, represents a prohibited form of punishment under the Geneva Conventions.
Preventing the entry of relief materials, including blankets, tents, and heaters, also contravenes the principle of special protection afforded to civilians in times of conflict, exposing a deliberate policy of using starvation and deprivation as tools of coercion and control.
This prohibition comes despite the recent ruling by the International Court of Justice, which affirmed that Gaza’s population has not received adequate humanitarian supplies and ordered Israel to allow their unimpeded delivery. Yet this decision, despite its legal and moral weight, remains unimplemented, in another stark example of international double standards and global silence in the face of systematic violations.
Israel has not only ignored the Court’s ruling but has openly declared that it will not permit UNRWA to resume its operations in Gaza, and that move defies international law and challenges the authority of the United Nations itself.
Over two years of relentless aggression, Israel has waged a genocidal war that has claimed the lives of more than 68,000 Palestinians and injured around 170,000 others, the majority of them women and children. With nearly 90 per cent of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure destroyed, its people now live a reality that encapsulates the meaning of slow annihilation.
The continued ban on shelter materials forms part of an integrated policy aimed at breaking the will of the Palestinian people and stripping them of their most basic human rights. Amid the world’s silence, Israel persists in enforcing a brutal equation: death under bombardment, or cold and misery beneath the tents.
