Gaza’s winter as a weapon of war: Living in tents of cloth and cold

By any measure of humanity, the sight is unbearable: tents stitched from old blankets, torn clothes, and scraps of plastic laid directly on the sandy ground of Gaza. What passes for “shelter” today is little more than a thin membrane between life and death. These makeshift structures—funded initially by an extraordinary wave of popular solidarity across the Arab region—were never meant to withstand a year, let alone the brutal cold and storms of this winter. They were meant to be temporary solutions during what people believed would be a temporary war. But the war never ended. Charities, Red Crescent societies, and civil society volunteers mobilised early on to respond to the mass displacement—thirteen displacements for some families—within the besieged Strip. […]