A harsh winter awaits the residents of the Gaza Strip amid deteriorating humanitarian and field conditions

The residents of the Gaza Strip are waiting for a new winter that will be harsh, as was the case over the course of three years of war that exhausted them in various aspects of life. They now live in tents, most of which are worn out, and barely protect them from the scorching sun that hits them in the summer, and from the heavy winter that drowns them and turns them into moving pools of water.

As residents of the Gaza Strip awaited the first depression on Friday evening, which will continue until Sunday morning, they did not find new solutions that could prevent them from drowning in light of the expected heavy rains for long hours, according to what meteorology expected.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 94 percent (1.98 million people) of the population of the Gaza Strip are in need of shelter and non-food aid, due to the deterioration of living conditions and the difficulty of accessing basic services, indicating that 85 percent of them face critical or catastrophic shelter needs, noting the presence of “a severe deficiency in shelter conditions or lack of access to basic services and non-food aid.”

Al-Ghazi Islam Abu Hazima (47 years old), a resident of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, and a displaced person in Mawasi Khan Yunis, is preparing for the rain that will arrive in the hours of Friday evening, by placing some sand on the edges and sides of the tent, to prevent water from leaking into it. However, he confirms in his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that this plan is not considered sound, and that previous experiences during heavy rains in the previous winter were failures.

Abu Hazima lives with his family of seven members in a worn-out tent, which barely protects them from a hot summer. He wonders about its ability to protect them from a harsh winter heavy with rain, pointing out that this is the second year in which he has faced the harshness of his tent, along with the family’s belongings and possessions, drowning.

According to the Palestinian NGO Network, more than 1,000 sites and camps to shelter displaced people may be flooded during the winter, with many of them residing in low-lying areas that lack protection and rainwater drainage, coinciding with a severe shortage of tents and shelter supplies.

According to the Winter Emergency Committee in the Gaza Strip, 7,800 tents in dangerous areas are threatened by floods, torrents, and sea waves, while there are 200,000 worn-out tents that expose their residents to the risk of drowning and extreme cold, pointing out that there are 1.5 million displaced people facing the dangers of winter.

Ghazi Nisreen Al-Qarshali, displaced in a tent inside the courtyard of a shelter center, says that her family’s tent was greatly worn out due to the winter and summer seasons, and she suffered a lot last year from the intensity of the rains, and was exposed to drowning more than once, which made it unfit for life.

Al-Qurshali adds with a sigh: “We used to live a good life, and now we are suffering and looking for something simple to restore our dignity... The tent does not provide dignity or anything else, only suffering and diseases,” noting that those who suffer most from this are children, women and the elderly, who face a threat to their health due to the extreme cold.

11 children died in the winter of last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health in Gaza and UN agencies.

Suffering is not limited to tent residents; Rather, it extends to families who live or have been displaced to buildings threatened with collapse, as happened the previous winter, and more recently following Israeli raids in their vicinity. According to estimates by government agencies in Gaza, there are about two thousand buildings at risk of collapse.

The Ministry of Public Works and Housing of the Hamas government in Gaza called on the residents of hundreds of buildings to evacuate, while several buildings were required to be evacuated because they were likely to collapse, in order to preserve the lives of their residents, setting a deadline of days for evacuation before the security authorities intervene to impose the evacuation process.

This comes in light of the continued deterioration of the security situation in the Gaza Strip, and the escalation of casualties with the continuation of Israeli raids. On Friday, it was announced the death of a Palestinian student who was injured a week ago in a raid that targeted the Islamic University in Gaza City, while the death of a prominent field activist in the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, was announced in a raid that targeted him in the Beach Camp, west of Gaza City, about a week ago.

Late on Thursday evening, an Israeli drone killed a Hamas field activist in a raid targeting him in the Beach Camp, while another activist was critically injured. This was preceded by a series of raids and shootings from Israeli vehicles and marches, which led to the killing of 4 other Palestinians, including a child, a woman, and an officer in the government’s “Internal Security” security service, following a raid targeting him in the town of Zawaida in the middle of the Gaza Strip.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi directed the Military Industrialization Authority to deal directly with manufacturing companies, and to prevent dealing with intermediary companies in contracts, in a step aimed at strengthening oversight of government purchases and reducing mediation rings, which sources say represent one of the channels of economic financing for armed factions.

The directive comes at a time when disputes are escalating between the government and some factions, against the backdrop of Al-Zaidi’s efforts to reset the relationship between state institutions and armed formations, including the economic interests associated with them. According to informed sources, the step raises concerns among parties that benefit from networks of intermediary companies working in the field of government contracts.

During a visit to the Military Industrialization Authority on Thursday, Al-Zaidi stressed “the necessity of dealing directly with the parent manufacturing companies, and not dealing with intermediary companies at all,” in a way that ensures transparency in contracts and limits mediation circles and areas of corruption, according to a statement from his media office.

Al-Zaidi stressed that Iraq has the ability to manufacture its weapons and equipment needs with national expertise, and that building an advanced military industry represents an essential pillar of national sovereignty, stressing the importance of research and development, and keeping pace with technological development in military industries.

The government directive has re-shed light on the network of intermediary companies active in government contracts, which sources say are linked to the economic interests of factions, and benefit from political and administrative influence to expand their business within state institutions.

Information indicates that some of these companies operate within a network linked to the Al-Muhandis Company, one of the “Popular Mobilization Forces” formations, or shadow companies affiliated with it, and are used, according to sources, to pass government contracts and provide financial resources to armed parties.

An informed source told Asharq Al-Awsat that these companies represent “part of the mechanism for financing armed factions through two paths: the first is generating revenues from construction and contracts, and the second is money laundering and laundering sources of income resulting from illegal activities, including oil and drug smuggling.”

In the political context, disputes began to escalate between some armed factions and parties in the “coordination framework,” amid accusations directed by factions against political and governmental forces in cooperating with Al-Zaidi to reduce their economic and security influence, in response to external pressures.

Political affairs expert Hussein Allawi believes that Al-Zaidi’s visit to the Military Industrialization Authority carried a message related to the necessity of protecting public money and developing Iraqi defense capabilities through direct dealings with international companies.

For his part, security affairs researcher Mukhlid Hazem said that Al-Zaidi’s decision represents an important step in confronting networks of companies that benefit from the influence of political or armed parties to obtain government contracts.