Sabah, her husband Ahmad and their seven children spent weeks sleeping outdoors after losing their home. “We fled from Shuja’iya to Rimal, then to the south (Rafiah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat) and then back to Shuja’iya,” Ahmad explains. “Every time we move, we lose more than the little we have.”
Sabah is inside a temporary shelter after spending weeks without a safe place to sleep.
Ahmad suffers from heart disease and has no access to medicine. One of his sons suffered a head injury and lost his memory. Another fell from the fifth floor during a strike. Another died of hepatitis.
“He died because I couldn’t get him the medicine he needed,” Sabah says. “I didn’t even have food, not even a pinch of salt.”
Before the ceasefire, life had become a daily battle for survival. Families spent days without food or drinking water. “The hardest thing for a parent,” says Ahmad, “is to see their children thirsty, to have water but not allowing them to drink because it has to last for days.”
Now, the ceasefire has created a fragile opportunity and, with it, the responsibility to act.
IOM and its partners continue to provide emergency shelter support to help families face the coming winter with greater safety and dignity.
Since the ceasefire began, families have continued to move through Gaza in search of safe haven, often finding their homes reduced to rubble.
According to partners at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 639,000 people are recorded heading from the south to Gaza City, with many people heading further north towards Jabalya and Beit Hanun.
Many are still sheltering in tents or mass displacement sites, often in unprotected open areas or in damaged buildings that offer little security.
In the past two months, IOM has delivered more than 660,000 hygiene and shelter items through its Common Pipeline Programme, including more than 11,000 tents, providing essential protection and restoring a sense of dignity to families like those in Sabah, who have endured prolonged insecurity.
BLDA, IOM’s Common Pipeline partner, distributes tents to families seeking safer shelter following the recent ceasefire.
IOM warehouses are full, trucks are ready and aid is ready for delivery; all that remains is to open the crossings so that help can reach those who need it most.
As winter approaches, the urgency increases as families lack access to adequate shelter materials.
“Families urgently need tents, blankets and warm clothing. The cold is starting to set in. Without shelter and warmth, the suffering will deepen,” says Mohammad Najjar, Program Manager of the Beit Lahia Development Association (BLDA), an IOM partner on the Common Pipeline inside Gaza.
Last winter, more than a dozen people, including babies, died of hypothermia. Similar deaths can be avoided this year if families are properly prepared and supported before bad weather hits.
BLDA teams prepare tents for displaced families across Gaza, offering essential support to those seeking safety.
“Palestinian humanitarian workers are already paving the long road to recovery, with the support of the international community,” adds M. Najjar. “But it will take peace, determination and collective will to ensure that the security and dignity of Palestinians in Gaza are preserved.”
Tonight, many families will return to rest under the open sky. The ceasefire has offered respite, but winter is approaching and needs are increasing rapidly.