Thousands of tents supplied by China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to shelter displaced Palestinians in Gaza offer only limited protection against rain and wind, an assessment compiled by shelter specialists in the devastated territory has revealed.
The assessment will undermine claims that Palestinians in Gaza are being supplied with adequate shelter. Fierce storms in recent weeks blew down or damaged thousands of tents, affecting at least 235,000 people, according to UN estimates.
Prepared by the Palestine Shelter Cluster, which coordinates the activities of nearly 700 non-government organisations in Palestine and is jointly chaired by the Red Cross and the UN, the assessment found that newly delivered tents housing hundreds of thousands of people would “likely need to be replaced”.
Tents in Nuseirat, central Gaza, where parts of the camp has experienced flooding. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
“The fabric [of the Egyptian tents] tears easily as sewing quality is poor,” it reported. “The fabric is not waterproof. Other issues include small windows, weak structure, no flooring, the roof collects water due to the design of the tent, and no mesh for openings.”
Tents from Saudi Arabia were criticised as having “non-waterproof light fabric, weak structure” and tents donated by China were “very light” and not waterproof.
Those supplied by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations were judged to have met the specifications of UN experts.
The findings – based on 9,000 responses to a poll on social media in November, observations “from partners on the ground” and “community feedback” – will raise new questions about the quality of aid being supplied directly to Gaza by individual countries, which have been favoured by Israeli authorities seeking to bypass the UN.
Since the ceasefire in October after two years of conflict, only 20,000 of the 90,000 tents that had entered Gaza were supplied by the UN or other major international NGOs, one aid official said.
A view of tents in Gaza City, including those marked by flags from the UAE and Qatar considered to have met UN specifications. The findings will raise questions about the quality of aid being supplied directly to Gaza by individual countries, which have been favoured by Israeli authorities seeking to bypass the UN. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees aid to Gaza, has said it is working to support “winterisation” in the territory by allowing the supply of more than 25,000 tonnes of tarpaulins and tents.
Palestinians in Gaza and humanitarian officials said tents sold on the open market by commercial contractors were inadequate for Gaza in winter and were expensive.
“The tent we live in is worn out and rainwater leaks inside,” said Linda Abu Halima, 30, who was living in the coastal zone of Mawasi after her home in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, was destroyed. “We received it through the help of someone; it is handmade from wood and tarpaulin. We cannot buy a new tent due to the high prices, and we have not received any aid at all.”
Almost all the 2.3 million population of Gaza has been displaced many times since the conflict was triggered in October 2023 by a surprise Hamas raid into Israel, and swathes of the territory have been reduced to rubble.
Many in Gaza believed the ceasefire would allow them to start rebuilding their homes. Instead, the division of the territory and the continued humanitarian crisis have made this impossible. Few have the resources to move, most essential items remain scarce, and basic services are almost nonexistent.
The UN’s operations may be further restricted as many NGOs that deliver services in Gaza on its behalf face a ban under new Israeli laws imposing stringent registration requirements.
Chinese-donated tents in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Officials in Israel have said the new system aims to “streamline the humanitarian system so that aid and humanitarian platforms are not used and abused by Hamas”. Aid officials said the consequences would be “catastrophic”.
Hopes for rapid progress to a second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire are fading. Analysts say neither Hamas, which has control over most of the population of Gaza, nor Israel, which holds more than half of the territory and all the entry points, have much incentive to make immediate concessions. Both sides accuse the other of ceasefire violations.
In their 2023 raid into Israel, Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 250. Israel’s ensuing offensive killed about 70,000 people, mostly civilians. Another 414 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, Palestinian officials said.
“The only thing that changed with the start of the ceasefire was the silence of the shelling and the end of the bloodshed; our daily lives remain almost the same, with the same suffering,” said Abdullah Abdo, 25, originally from Gaza City but now living in a tented encampment in Mawasi.
According to Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the conflict in Gaza, the second phase would involve full disarmament of Hamas, complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, the deployment of an “international stabilisation force” and the appointment of a technocratic administration for the territory. The plan also calls for a “full” flow of aid.
Aid officials told the Guardian that efforts to reinforce flood defences were hindered by Israeli restrictions on heavy equipment, construction material and sandbags. Israeli officials said some such machinery could be used by Hamas for military purposes, such as building tunnels.
A displaced Palestinian looks out over a makeshift camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA
Jawaher Abd Rabbo, 25, lives with her husband and three small children in a single, rat-infested room with no windows or floor in the ruins of an apartment block in the Nasser neighbourhood of Gaza City. Nothing remains of her own home, only a mile further east.
Rabbo and her family recently fled from a makeshift shelter east of the Tuffah neighbourhood close to the new “yellow line” which, since the ceasefire in October, divides Gaza into zones controlled by Israel and Hamas.
“We left when we heard lots of explosions,” Rabbo said. “I left all our clothes and belongings behind, and carried my two-month-old daughter in my arms and held my two-year-old by the hand, while my husband was in a wheelchair due to an injury he got during the war.”
Rabbo said she and her husband had tried to repair the room that is now their home, putting plastic sheets where there once were walls and on the ground.
Nineteen people have been killed by buildings collapsing after recent heavy rain, Palestinian officials said.
‘During this storm, we had no sufficient blankets or clothing to protect us from the cold,” Rabbo said. “Rainwater soaked everything. We only have one mattress, which my children and I share. I know staying in a ruined building during winter is extremely dangerous, but we have no other choice.”
