As winter approaches, Palestinians in Gaza are desperately trying to prepare their tents and damaged homes while food cuts by the World Food Programme are exacerbating rising levels of hunger.
Abdel Qader Sabbah | Nov 3, 2026
GAZA CITY—Al-Abd Abu Beid set a box of food rations down on a pile of stones he uses as a makeshift table outside his ramshackle tent on the coastline west of Gaza City. The cardboard box displayed the blue logo of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), along with a stamp showing it had been packed on July 11, 2026. Abu Beid sifted through the contents: a plastic bottle of sunflower oil, a bag of red split lentils, and eight cans of hummus or white beans.
Featured Picture: Al-Abd Abu Beid prepares a meal of lentils from food rations distributed by the World Food Programme, one day after the UN agency announced it would reduce food aid in Gaza by around one-third. October 20, 2026. Screenshot from footage by Abdel Qader Sabbah.
“We have no income at all,” Abu Beid told Drop Site News. “We depend heavily on the brown boxes from the World Food Programme.”
“We were actually hoping they would improve the contents of these boxes, because they contain rice, lentils, and the same things over and over again,” he continued. “Instead, we were shocked to hear that they’re going to cut it off.”
Abu Beid spoke to Drop Site on October 20—one day after the WFP announced it was reducing food aid in Gaza by around one-third, cutting off access to half a million Palestinians from critical food assistance due to funding shortages. The cuts also reduce food rations by half—with families receiving only one food parcel a month instead of two—and a smaller bag of wheat flour. In addition, WFP cut the number of daily hot meals it provides from 250,000 to 150,000. Meanwhile, families living in the most hard-to-reach areas of Gaza, including near the yellow line of Israeli military control, will now receive a hot meal every other day instead of daily. The value of cash assistance provided to 75,000 families would also be reduced, the UN agency said.
“What is a family supposed to do? I have seven people in my family. How am I supposed to feed them? Even if the food was repetitive, just rice and lentils, I have no income, so I relied on it to cook for my children,” Abu Beid said. “This is a humanitarian crime. People are being killed and slaughtered every day, and now you’re cutting off their food too. This is catastrophic.”
The WFP announcement came a little over a year after the “ceasefire” agreement that was supposed to bring an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza and restore the delivery of food, fuel, medicine, and other life essentials to what experts say are the minimum required levels.
Instead, the Israeli military has continued its attacks, killing over 1,500 men, women and children while severely restricting the amount of aid allowed into Gaza in violation of the agreement. In October alone, Israel killed 143 Palestinians in direct attacks, according to the Health Ministry, including 23 children, and injured over 670.
The unrelenting Israeli assault prompted a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry to conclude earlier this month that Israel is continuing to “commit genocidal acts even after the so-called ceasefire agreement, with the intent to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part.”
With the genocide now its fourth year, levels of hunger and malnutrition are once again growing. In the same announcement that it was heavily reducing food assistance to Gaza, the WFP said that an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians, or 67% of Gaza’s population, are experiencing acute food insecurity at “crisis levels or worse.” Some 200,000 people remain in “emergency conditions,” where immediate food assistance is needed to prevent deaths from hunger.
“We depend on these parcels for everything: flour, rice, lentils, paste, chickpeas, and beans. Most of what we eat is beans, rice, and lentils. We use the flour to make bread on a metal griddle over a fire,” Linda Abu Warda told Drop Site. She sat stirring a blackened pot filled with a rice stew as her husband, Fares, fed small pieces of wood into the fire beneath it—a thin metal box serving as a makeshift stove. “Now they’re saying the aid has stopped, or that it’s going to stop. We’re already barely managing to get by with what little we have. Imagine what will happen if they cut it off completely. I have children, as you can see. They’ll die of hunger.”
She added, “We’ve already lived through famine. We’ve experienced it. We were hoping they’d increase the amount of aid we receive, not reduce it.”
In mid-2025, Gaza was plunged into a full-blown famine, with Palestinians collapsing in the streets and men, women, and children dying from hunger and malnutrition on a daily basis. An Israeli starvation campaign that included a full blockade in March 2025 was followed by a privatized “aid distribution” system overseen by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that replaced the UN. With just four distribution sites across the entirety of the enclave, guarded by American mercenaries and located in areas occupied by Israeli soldiers, the GHF sites became death traps for starving Palestinians seeking food. More than 2,600 Palestinians were killed at or near GHF distribution sites or at the few UN convoys allowed inside.
“We hope they’ll allow this aid to enter officially and legally, instead of forcing us to go back to Zikim like before, when people had to risk their lives just to bring home a bite of food for their children,” Linda’s husband, Fares, said, referring to one of the aid distribution sites in 2025 where hundreds of Palestinians were killed. “A man would go out and instead of coming home with a bag of flour, he’d come back in a body bag.”
Food prices have soared as a result of food shortages and arbitrary closures of the crossings into Gaza by Israel. In mid-October, Israel suddenly halted all commercial shipments into Gaza. While commercial goods were eventually allowed back in after several days, the brief closure nevertheless sent prices shooting upward.
“The closure of the crossings is what’s driving prices up,” Linda Abu Warda said. “When we want to cook a meal, we can’t even afford a single onion, it’s expensive. Onions cost 30 or 40 shekels a kilo [about $9.5 to $12.75], so we’ve had to do without them…They used to cost four or five shekels [about $1.25 to $1.60].” She added, “People don’t have the money to buy anything. They’ve raised the prices of sugar, food, cooking oil, and vegetables.”
Other humanitarian groups have also reduced aid distribution to Gaza. In May, World Central Kitchen (WCK), the biggest provider of hot meals in Gaza announced it was cutting its distribution in half, from around one million meals a day to 500,000. WCK said the decision was “driven entirely by financial pressure,” citing rising food prices as a result of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
“The famine has not ended in Gaza,” Ahmed Abu Qamar, a writer and economic affairs researcher in Gaza City, told Drop Site. “Perhaps its severity has eased slightly. When we look back at last summer, the famine was extremely severe. Since the ceasefire agreement last October, Israel has been pursuing a policy of engineered starvation. In other words, it may allow people the bare minimum to eat each day, or even less than that, but it does not provide them with what they need to achieve food security and sustain their lives.”
“We’re extremely, extremely afraid of winter”
Mohammed Zayed, who lives in the same tent encampment on the sandy shoreline west of Gaza City, used rudimentary tools to try and erect a wall of tarp and blankets around his tent. Wind billowed through the pieces of cloth and tarp hanging from thin metal poles and pieces of wood hammered into the ground and connected by lengths of wire and rope.
“Here on the beach, we suffer terribly in both summer and winter. And now, as winter approaches, we’re trying to prepare because living here is extremely difficult,” Zayed told Drop Site on October 14. “These tents can’t withstand that because they’re worn out and falling apart. They’re three years old now. ”
“We’re extremely, extremely afraid of winter,” he continued. “We try to stitch up tarps and secure the metal poles properly. We’re trying to reduce the impact of the wind, because otherwise it’ll blow everything away. It’s extremely difficult for me and for everyone here. People’s tents are worn out, falling apart, collapsing around them. Nobody has the means to replace a tent or change the tarps to prepare for winter.”
“All of this is just an illusion,” he said, pointing to the tarps. “All of this will be blown away.”
Zayed’s tent is part of a vast tent encampment on the northern Gaza coastline. Nearly the entirety of Gaza’s population has been forced to displace by Israel’s assault, with many families displaced multiple times. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza are now living crammed in tent encampments. Dilapidated tents now occupy every open space, with streets, squares, stadiums, courtyards, and fields filled with tent encampments.
The lack of proper shelter has been disastrous and even fatal, particularly in winter with torrential rains, high winds, flooding, and cold temperatures. Over the past three winters, Palestinians—mostly infants—have died of hypothermia in Gaza as a result of exposure, including 11 children last winter alone.
“The humanitarian situation remains catastrophic with the near totality of the population still surviving in deteriorated tents and makeshift shelters, bracing for a fourth winter without adequate protection from the cold, wind, rain and flooding risks,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted in its latest situation report last week.
Since the ceasefire, Israel has continued to push inward, expanding the yellow line that demarcates its area of control, driving Palestinians further west onto just 30% of the enclave. Israel has also blocked the entry of reconstruction materials, mobile homes, and heavily restricted the number of tents and shelter materials allowed into Gaza in violation of the agreement.
“Those displaced before the announcement of a ceasefire have little to no prospect of return to the areas they fled, most of which are inaccessible because they fall beyond the so-called yellow line. And they continue to be displaced again and again,” said Ajith Sunghay, the head of UN Human Rights in the occupied territories, in a statement last week. “There must be an end to this suffering. This is the fourth year of displacement for most Palestinians in Gaza, the fourth winter in tents too flimsy to withstand the rain, and they are still under fire through it all.”
Before the genocide, Khalda Ghattas lived in an apartment in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City. “I used to live in an apartment building protected by concrete, with warmth, mattresses, furniture sets, and carpets. What a beautiful home it was,” she told Drop Site. Now, she lives in a flimsy tent on the sand. “Then we were displaced to the port. The cold is already eating us alive. We can’t keep the wind out.”
She continued, “You put up a tarp, another one falls down. You put up a blanket, it falls too. And the biggest problem is that I can’t afford to buy good, sturdy tarps. And even if I bought one, I’d need metal poles to hold it up. We have nothing.” Due to the severe shortages, Ghattas said a tarp can cost between 180 and 200 shekels (around $57 to $64). “Where am I supposed to get that money? I simply can’t afford it,” she said. “We’re still in autumn, but we already can’t withstand the wind. And I have children, as you can see. I have so many children, including babies. This little girl has asthma, and I have children with respiratory diseases. I suffer from rheumatism, and my husband has a heart condition.”
Nasser Al-Shanbari, who was displaced from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, now runs a small street stall in Gaza City selling tarps, mattresses, sheets and other shelter items.
“Tarps have become scarcer this season, prices have gone up, and people have very little money,” Al-Shanbari told Drop Site. “Some of the tarps we have aren’t even any good. The ones we get these days don’t last more than two or three months in the wind and rain before they fall apart. Prices have risen, and deliveries have also decreased recently. We buy them from people and from traders, but the quantities available are very limited.”
He continued, “A plank that used to cost 10 shekels now costs 150 shekels. A small measure of nails that used to cost 10 shekels now costs 50. All of this is expensive. To fix up a shelter with wood, nails, and tarps, it would cost at least around 5,000 shekels [about $1,600].”
With little recourse, many families have taken to seeking shelter in badly damaged buildings that are at risk of collapse. In one of the deadliest cases, at least 21 Palestinians, including 12 children, were killed and 45 others injured when a residential building collapsed in Gaza City in September. More than 100 people were estimated to have been sheltering in the building.
Mohammed Al-Shabrawi is currently living in his badly damaged family home in the Jabaliya refugee camp close to the yellow line. Like nearly every building in the area, his home was bombed during the war, killing several members of his family. Barely any of the walls remain intact, with many rooms exposed to the elements. Al-Shabrawi has taken to affixing tarps and sheets to try and shield himself from the elements.
“We’re trying to seal off the openings with tarps and strips of fabric. Even the wall behind me is made of tarp, and everything you see here is covered with tarps. It’s extremely difficult for us to buy them because they’re so expensive,” Al-Shabrawi told Drop Site.
“We’re living in a bombed out house… We’re struggling to cover the walls and roof. When it rains tomorrow, the entire roof will leak. There isn’t a single part of it that doesn’t leak and let water pour down on us.”
Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report. Sami Vanderlip edited the video.
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