Winter Appeal for Gaza
A tent does not keep out a Gaza winter. Blankets, clothing and weatherproofing do.
Gaza's winter is not severe by northern standards, and that is exactly why it is underestimated. It is wet, windy and cold enough that a family sleeping on the ground under canvas gets no relief for months — and the health consequences fall on children, infants and the elderly.
Flooding is the part people do not picture. Rain turns a displacement site into standing water, bedding soaks, and there is nowhere dry to move to.
This appeal funds the specific things that make a tent winter survivable: thermal blankets, winter clothing for children, and weatherproofing for shelters.
What your donation covers
From what we currently pay for winterisation:
- $20 — two thermal blankets
- $55 — a complete winter clothing kit for one child
- $130 — weatherproofs a family tent against rain and cold
- $800 — prepares ten families for the full winter season
Why weatherproofing beats blankets, if you have to choose
A blanket in a tent that floods is a wet blanket by morning. Sealing and raising a shelter — tarpaulin, ground insulation, drainage around the structure — is what makes everything else inside it work.
At $130 a tent it is not the cheapest line on the list, and it is the one partner field teams push hardest for, because it changes the whole winter for that household rather than one night.
Winter aid has a deadline, unlike most of what we do
Most humanitarian needs are continuous. Winterisation is not: supplies have to be procured, moved and distributed before the weather turns, and a blanket delivered in February has missed most of what it was for.
This is why we raise for winter early and ask donors not to wait for the images that appear once the flooding starts. By then, the supplies that help need to have been bought months earlier.
Who gets prioritised
Households with infants, elderly members, anyone with a chronic respiratory condition, and families in the most exposed sites — where there is no structure at all between the tent and the weather.
Distributions are recorded by household and checked afterwards on a sample basis, the same as our food and education work.