By Quds News Network
Gaza (QNN)- A Palestinian infant has frozen to death in Gaza, becoming the fifth child to die in recent days as Israel continues to restrict the entry of shelter materials and other humanitarian aid despite the harsh winter conditions there and ceasefire.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed on Thursday that one-month-old Saeed Abdeen died from extreme cold amid a severe lack of heating and adequate living conditions.
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Since a huge storm hit the Palestinian enclave last week and winter set in, at least 20 Palestinians have died from cold exposure and collapsing buildings, including five children (all children from cold), medical sources and local authorities said.
Despite being battered by heavy rainfall and early winter storms for several weeks now, “winterisation supplies” remain “limited” in Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said in its daily report.
Civil Defense Spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said Tuesday that winter rains flooded 90 percent of tents in the war-torn enclave, leaving thousands of families without shelter.
The Civil Defense teams said they received more than 5,000 calls for help from residents since the storms began affecting the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s two-year war has destroyed more than 80 percent of the structures across Gaza, forcing hundreds of thousands of families to take refuge in flimsy tents or overcrowded makeshift shelters.
Now, the humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate as winter deepens amid the Israeli blockade despite the ceasefire which took effect on October 10. With limited access to shelter materials, fuel, and medical care, displaced Palestinians fear that the coming weeks will bring even greater hardship.
This week, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said the Israeli occupation government has blocked it from bringing aid directly into Gaza.
“People have reportedly died due to the collapse of damaged buildings where families were sheltering. Children have reportedly died from exposure to the cold,” UNRWA said in a social media post on Tuesday.
“This must stop. Aid must be allowed in at scale, now,” adding Palestinians across the territory are “freezing to death”.
Aid groups have called on the international community to press Israel to lift restrictions on aid entering the war-torn Gaza Strip, warning that life-saving operations risk collapse.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Humanitarian Country Team, which brings together senior UN officials and more than 200 local and international aid groups, referred to a new registration system for international non-governmental organisations, introduced earlier this year.
Aid groups say the process is “vague, politicised and impossible to meet without breaching humanitarian principles” as dozens of organisations face deregistration by the end of December, followed by the forced closure of their operations within weeks.
18 December 2025
Source: countercurrents.org