Winter Support in Gaza: Children Need Protection Now
For hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, winter is not simply a seasonal hardship. It can become a life-threatening emergency. UNICEF is delivering essential supplies including warm clothing, thermal blankets and tarpaulins to help children in Gaza make it through their fourth winter without adequate heat or shelter. Here's how to help.
Winter in Gaza brings freezing nights and heavy rains
As winter approaches in the Gaza Strip, thousands of children and their families face harsh conditions while living in overcrowded tents or dangerous, bombed-out buildings that offer little protection from the season's bitter winds and heavy rain.
Infants, young children and children with pre-existing health conditions are particularly at risk. During the last winter in Gaza, at least 11 children, including infants, reportedly died from hypothermia.
To help children in Gaza stay warm in the months ahead, UNICEF is distributing essential supplies including:
- winter clothing for 500,000 children
- 500,000 thermal blankets for children and families
- 235,000 plastic tarpaulins to protect shelters from rain, wind and damp
- 15,000 family tents for the most vulnerable households identified through child protection and and other vulnerability-based referral mechanisms
- digital cash assistance for 10,000 families, allowing them to purchase priority winter items
- 3,000 High-Performance tents to enable the continued delivery of critical services during winter
Learn more about how UNICEF supports children in Gaza
Video: See what's inside a UNICEF winter clothing kit for children in Gaza
800,000 children are still displaced; most are living in tents or bombed-out buildings
Four years after the escalation of hostilities in Gaza, 800,000 children are still displaced. UNICEF has provided millions of tarpaulins for families to use to create makeshift shelters in ruined buildings in danger of collapse.
Twelve-year-old Ramadan remembers last year's harsh winter, and is worried that this year will be even worse. "Last winter, it rained so heavily," he says. "The wind would blow the tent around, and water would flood inside. I'm afraid the wind might blow our tent away, or we'll be flooded again. I just hope things can go back to how they were before the war, and we can return home."
I'm afraid the wind might blow our tent away, or we'll be flooded again. I just hope things can go back to how they were before the war, and we can return home. — Ramadan, 12
Quadcopters and drones remain a daily presence in the skies overhead. Children are still in grave danger: more than 340 children have been killed in the year since a ceasefire agreement was announced in October 2025, and 600 more injured. An estimated 60,000 children in Gaza have seen either one or both parents killed during the war, or since the ceasefire.
Learn more: Children in Gaza Are Still Waiting for an End to the Violence
UNICEF is working to maintain essential services for children
UNICEF is working with partners to maintain essential services children rely on, and providing flood mitigation and emergency water, sanitation and hygiene support to reduce the risk of contaminated floodwater and disease outbreaks.
“Since the ceasefire, more than 560,000 children have returned to learning, including in over 200 UNICEF-supported learning centers," UNICEF Global Deputy Spokesperson Ricardo Pires said on Oct. 16. "This year we’ve provided digital cash assistance — a lifeline — to more than 380,000 people, and we continue to supply safe water to 1.2 million people, while removing solid waste and delivering medical supplies."
Sustained, flexible support is needed to help UNICEF deliver for children when they need it most. As of late September 2026, UNICEF's State of Palestine Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) Appeal was only 66 percent funded.
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HOW TO HELP
There are many ways to make a difference
War, famine, poverty, natural disasters — threats to the world's children keep coming. But UNICEF won't stop working to keep children healthy and safe.
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories — more places than any other children's organization. UNICEF has the world's largest humanitarian warehouse and, when disaster strikes, can get supplies almost anywhere within 72 hours. Constantly innovating, always advocating for a better world for children, UNICEF works to ensure that every child can grow up healthy, educated, protected and respected.
Would you like to help give all children the opportunity to reach their full potential? There are many ways to get involved.
