OCHA: Colder temperatures underscore urgency of stepping up shelter support in Gaza 

17 November 2025

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the UN and its humanitarian partners continue to respond to needs across the Gaza Strip. OCHA warns that the humanitarian situation remains very difficult, with many people struggling to access the basics they need.

Following heavy rains on Friday, humanitarian teams carried out rapid assessments of affected areas over the weekend and provided initial aid. More than 13,000 families are estimated to have been affected by the flooding.

Partners working on shelter say they helped distribute at least 9,000 tents, 83,000 tarpaulins and 59,000 blankets over the weekend, with thousands more planned in the coming days.

While the UN and its partners have moved swiftly to respond in rain-affected areas, these efforts remain constrained by the inadequate volumes of shelter and other necessary supplies allowed to enter through the UN-coordinated mechanism.

OCHA stresses that with temperatures dropping and winter fast approaching, the UN must be allowed to expand the shelter response to meet the vast scale of needs across the Strip. Once again, OCHA calls for unrestricted, rapid and sustained access; the opening of additional crossings; facilitation of entry of tents that are currently restricted, as well as critical equipment to maintain storm drains and repair sanitation networks; permissions for NGOs to bring in supplies; and the safe movement of humanitarian convoys. Since 10 October, at least nine attempts by the UN and its partners to bring in tents have been rejected.

Meanwhile, partners working on food security report that with the volume of food parcels entering Gaza having increased in recent days, they plan to resume the distribution of two food parcels and one bag of flour per household across the Strip. Earlier last week, distributions in the north had to be limited to high-energy biscuits and one bag of flour because partners working to bring supplies into Gaza were facing impediments, including de-prioritization of humanitarian cargo at crossings, customs clearance delays, and lack of access to northern crossings.

Since the ceasefire came into effect, partners leading efforts to remove rubble and debris from roads and communities report that they have cleared 100,000 tons of debris. However, nearly 58 million tons of debris and rubble remain spread across the Strip – and only half of that amount is currently accessible.

The UN and its partners continue to collect supplies daily from the crossings. Over the weekend, they started collecting supplies offloaded at Zikim and bringing them into Gaza – after two months of that crossing’s closure. The teams collected over 2,700 pallets of essential supplies – about 2,600 metric tons.

Overall, between Thursday and Sunday, the UN and its partners collected over 5,400 metric tons of assistance from the crossings, according to the UN 2720 Mechanism dashboard. Supplies included food, tents, tarpaulins, blankets, mattresses, medicine and animal fodder.

Food Insecurity

UN Deputy Relief Chief calls for action to address hunger in conflict 

The Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Joyce Msuya, told the Security Council today that the world’s most extreme food crises – including the famines in parts of the Gaza Strip and Sudan – are driven primarily by armed conflict and violence.

Addressing an open debate on conflict-related food insecurity, Ms. Msuya stressed that international humanitarian law is clear: “Civilians and civilian objects must be protected,” she said. “The use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.”

The Assistant Secretary-General called on the Security Council and Member States to use their leverage to address hunger in conflict, adopt strong policies and practices to protect civilians, facilitate humanitarian action by simplifying bureaucratic procedures and ensuring humanitarians can engage all parties, and strengthen accountability.