A man clears rainwater from the top of a displacement tent at the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on November 24, 2024.    (File photo by AFP)

United Nations, December 8 (RHC)-- The United Nations has raised the alarm about one million displaced Palestinians facing extreme winter cold in the Gaza Strip. 

The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) warned on Sunday that nearly one million displaced Palestinians in war-torn Gaza are at risk of extreme cold and rain this winter.  “Displaced people in Gaza need protection from the rain and cold. Only around 23 percent of this need has been met, leaving 945,000 people at risk of exposure this winter,” the UN agency said in a statement.

Palestinians in Gaza “search through the rubble of their destroyed homes, trying to salvage what little remains after an Israeli airstrike,” UNRWA added.

With the temperatures going down, many people have been falling sick. In addition, there have been floods of rainwater and sewage.

“As strikes continue, civilian casualties rise, and homes and vital infrastructure are reduced to ruins,” UNRWA said.  “The human cost of this war is unbearable,” the agency added, reiterating its call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza to prevent further suffering.

The UN says nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is now displaced, and 90 percent of those living in shelters are in tents.

“My children’s feet, their heads -- everything is freezing,” Shaima Issa told a reporter in Khan Younis.  “My daughter has a fever because of the cold. We’re essentially living on the streets, surrounded by strips of fabric. Everyone here is sick and coughing.”

“When it rains on us, we’re drenched,” adds her neighbor, Salwa Abu Nimer, crying. “The heavy rain floods us, and we don’t have a waterproof cover.  The water seeps into the tent.  We wear our clothes wet.”

“No flour, no food, no drink, no shelter,” she went on.  “What is this life I’m living? I go to the ends of the earth just to feed my children.”

The Israeli regime launched a genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza last October. Since then, the brutal zionist forces have killed more than 44,600 people, most of them women and children.

International courts have condemned the Israeli attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy the Palestinian population.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on November 21 for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The Israeli regime also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.

Despite international outrage and rebuke by legal experts, the Tel Aviv regime continues its illegal criminal activities amounting to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.