Calls mount for Israel to allow winter supplies into Gaza

GAZA CITY

The United Kingdom, Qatar and Jordan led a coalition of more than 50 U.N. countries and organizations have called on Israel to provide immediate entry of critical items for shelter, fuel, water, sanitation and health to Gaza.

The countries, including Türkiye, said too many people in Gaza “risk exposure to hypothermia, respiratory infections, waterborne diseases and other preventable illnesses” with winter’s arrival.

Sarah MacIntosh, the U.K.’s permanent representative to the U.N., delivered the statement on behalf of the co-signatories on Nov. 12.

She noted that since the October 2025 ceasefire, “progress to improve the humanitarian situation is possible when political will allows,” but said that “as winter sets in, far too many people in Gaza are still without adequate shelter and risk exposure to hypothermia, respiratory infections, waterborne diseases, and other preventable illnesses.”

“Following elections in Israel, we reiterate our call to the incoming government of Israel to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access throughout Gaza and through all available crossings and land routes,” she said.

The statement came on the same day, when a nine-month-old baby died of hypothermia, after days of harsh weather and flooding in the Gaza Strip that displaced thousands of Palestinians living in tents.

The doctor, who saw the child and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that nine-month-old Kinan Ahmed Raqiq “died from hypothermia inside his family’s displacement tent” in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Ahmed Raqiq, told AFP that his son Kinan died of cold during the night in their tent in southern Gaza.

“I woke up only to see his skin had turned blue so I rushed him to Nasser hospital, but he had already died from hypothermia and frozen to death,” he said.

“I am in complete shock. I found myself holding my son wrapped in burial shroud,” he said outside the hospital, dried tears on his face as he held his son wrapped in a white sheet.

Heavy rain last week flooded tens of thousands of people’s tents in Gaza, where virtually the whole population has been displaced at least once by three years of Israeli strikes

Five people, including three children died, the day after the flooding when a sandy embankment collapsed onto their tents.

Since then, hundreds of displaced families have been seen fleeing camps in parts of Gaza City and central and northern areas of the territory after they were inundated by rainwater.

James Elder, spokesman on Gaza for the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, warned that the flooding was just the beginning of the cold season.

“It’s very important to know how bad things are in Gaza. It’s not yet winter,” Elder said.

“We’re weeks away from winter, so we are getting unprecedented rain and cold.”

The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that as of Nov. 8, 26,000 households were affected by storms.

Around 65 percent of Gaza’s people are still living displaced in tents or other temporary shelter, OCHA said.