Tens of thousands of people sheltering on Gaza’s exposed Mediterranean coastline face harsh winter conditions with inadequate shelter, food and fuel, as temperatures plunge in the devastated territory and a series of storms destroy their makeshift tents.

In recent weeks, bad weather has forced hundreds living in the coastal strip of Gaza around al-Mawasi to evacuate their shelters, ruining cooking utensils, clothes, stocks of food and precious firewood. Al-Mawasi was designated a “humanitarian zone” by Israeli military offensives and is packed with people displaced during 13 months of fighting, airstrikes and artillery bombardment.

Hisham al-Haddad, 30, described how he had been surprised by a sudden rush of sea water that crashed over his tent and those of his neighbours last week. His family of eight had been living near Deir al Balah on the coast in the humanitarian zone since fleeing the Israeli offensive into the southern city of Rafah in May.

“We had no choice but set up our tent right on the beach sand due lack of space, but there were were two lines of tents in front of us before the sea. All of them were swallowed completely by the sea in the storm and high tide. It was like a tsunami. I just grabbed my children and ran,” al-Haddad said.

“Everyone was busy saving himself. The waves swept out some people and children, but they were all rescued. Everyone was screaming and crying for help I wanted to go to help others, but I was busy saving myself and my family.”

The UN and other agencies have predicted acute hardship during winter months, when temperatures in Gaza can dip as low as 5C with an average minimum temperature of 10C. More than two-thirds of buildings in the territory have been damaged, and swathes rendered uninhabitable.

Last month, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said people in Gaza had been forced to burn plastic rubbish as a last resort to keep warm.

“Winter in Gaza means people will not only die because of airstrikes, diseases or hunger. Winter in Gaza means more people will die shivering because of the cold, especially among the most vulnerable including older people [and] children,” Lazzarini posted on X.

Aid agencies, the UN and individual governments have called for an improved flow of aid into Gaza, particularly to the north where an estimated 60,000 to 75,000 people have been cut off from humanitarian assistance for more than two months by a blockade imposed on several neighbourhoods by the Israeli military.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said on X that it would continue to work with the international community to increase aid into Gaza through Kerem Shalom and other crossings, and said UNRWA coordinated less than 10% of the aid that entered Gaza in November.

October 2024 marked the worst month for humanitarian aid entering Gaza since the conflict began. According to COGAT, 90 trucks entered every day in November on average, up from 60 trucks a day in October.

“It’s so cold as we don’t have winter clothes to protect our bodies from the cold, and there are not enough covers, I used half of them to make the tent. My children have two pieces of warm clothes, they will wear it both to get warm, but it is also not enough. There is also no firewood to set fire to get some warmth, said Fida Eid, a 26-year-old mother of two children.

Eid, displaced from Jabalia, which is under Israeli siege and the site of fierce fighting, said five of her close relatives had been killed in the conflict.

The war was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas militants into southern Israel last October. About 1,200 were killed, mostly civilians, and 250 abducted. So far, about 44,800 have been killed in Gaza in the Israeli military offensive that followed, according to local health authorities, and about 106,300 wounded. Most are civilians. Thousands more are missing.

Food prices have soared in recent weeks, with basics too expensive for many. A 25kg bag of flour now costs more than $120 (£94), more than 10 times its pre-war price.

“We get only very little aid from the NGOs. The last time I got an aid package was a month ago which, as usual, only contained canned food, so we depend on the meals we get from the charity kitchens. For water, we queue for hours … This how our lives are,” al-Haddad told the Guardian.

Sabreen al-Atout lives with her husband and six daughters in a makeshift tent in al-Mawasi.

“Winter is coming … we don’t have any proper shelter that protects us from rain. We don’t have enough blankets, we don’t have winter clothes, and we’ve no way of keeping warm with any kind of heating,” she said

Al-Atout’s 12-year-old daughter, Rahaf, was killed in a bombing in November last year, and her twin sister’s lower legs are badly injured.

“Now she needs to get out of Gaza to receive the rest of the treatment, but that’s impossible, and with this freezing cold in winter, she suffers a lot from the impact of the injury, and there are no clothes or socks to warm her feet,” said al-Atout.