Displaced families brace for winter in tents on Gaza's shoreline

Just metres from the sea near al-Qarara port on Gaza's coast, Anas al-Shami, 33, is struggling to keep his family of six warm and dry inside a worn-out tent. The shelter offers little defence against wind and rain, dampness seeps into their bedding and belongings at all hours, and the swelling waves have become a constant menace as winter approaches.

The beach was never where al-Shami wanted to live. The refuge his family first found after being displaced from their home quickly became overcrowded, and they cannot afford anything safer. The family was forced out of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, after it fell inside Israel's so-called "Yellow Zone", an area Palestinians are not permitted to enter.

"I searched for land in displacement areas where I could pitch a tent, but overcrowding and high rental costs made that impossible," he told Al Jazeera. "I was therefore forced to stay on the beach, despite the dangers facing my family and me."

Al-Shami recalls last winter, when seawater and rain flooded the tent while the family slept. He would wake to find his children lying in water, their bedding and belongings repeatedly soaked as the tent turned into a pond. Despite searching all year, the family has found nowhere else to go. "My children's repeated exposure to water, cold and damp caused serious illness which threatened their lives," he said.

It is a familiar story along this stretch of coastline. Ibrahim Abu Tair, 47, whose family was also displaced from eastern Khan Younis, shares a cramped tent with his seven children on the port's shoreline. The tattered shelter lacks basic necessities and barely shields them from cold, rain and wind. "What hurts me most is feeling helpless in front of my children," he said. "I cannot provide winter clothes to protect them from the cold or even a dry mattress for them to sleep on." The strong wind and the sound of rising waves keep him awake at night, and he says he is terrified of a repeat of last year's flood, when water inundated the tent and the family endured the cold in the open. His greatest wish, he says, is a safe shelter where his children can sleep without fear.

Some families have improvised a defence against the water by filling damaged cooking pots with earth to form barriers beside the tents. Mayasem Association, an aid organisation that works with World Central Kitchen, has taken up the idea and is now producing these pot barriers for families near al-Qarara port. The initiative reuses large pots rendered unusable by flames, corrosion and holes. Three pots donated by World Central Kitchen are filled with soil and stacked to roughly 150 centimetres in height, holding back incoming water and keeping waves from reaching the shelters.

"The initiative initially involved building barriers to protect the association's safe space, which hosts its education programmes, school, cultural activities, arts and heritage programmes," Khalil Abu Lahia, the association's emergency response coordinator, told Al Jazeera. "The idea later developed into an attempt to protect the displaced families' tents along the coastal strip."

Such ingenuity can help destitute families at risk, but it remains a temporary fix that cannot make up for the widespread lack of safe shelter. Gaza's Winter Emergency Committee has warned of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe, saying tents and caravans are in critically short supply as Israeli authorities continue to block their entry into the Gaza Strip along with construction materials and fuel. The committee reported that Israeli forces have destroyed about 70 percent of municipalities' essential operational equipment and 90 percent of civil defence rescue equipment, while the fuel crisis means machinery and generators will soon stop functioning altogether, further limiting flood response, rescue operations and road clearing.

In all, about 200,000 dilapidated tents are sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced people, among them children, women and people with disabilities. The committee has warned that some 7,800 tents stand in extremely hazardous spots, including dry riverbeds that could flood, rainwater collection ponds and beaches exposed to crashing winter waves, and says they must be urgently relocated. About 2,000 cracked buildings are also at risk of collapse, threatening the families sheltering inside them. Building materials, caravans, shelter and fuel are all urgently needed, the committee said.