Hanging by a thread: The trembling life of Palestinians between storms & deals

The third winter of genocide is receding from Gaza, leaving behind more shredded tents battered by months of rain and wind. Displaced families remain exposed—no homes to return to, no clear horizon for reconstruction. What the storms have undone remains undone, and every previous collapse now feels like a postponed warning of the next.

The danger is doubling along the southern coastline of the Gaza Strip. Sections of the sandy cliff have crumbled like falling dominoes, while displaced families continue pitching their tents on fragile ground that cannot bear the weight of their bodies—or their dreams.

According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, around 125,000 tents sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced people had become worn out and uninhabitable due to repeated displacement. Their suffering, it said, has worsened during the winter months.

Between a collapsing cliff, relentless rain, and violent storms, survival itself becomes a daily challenge. Families living along the coastal ridge remain haunted by the fear of another landslide like the one in October, which killed Amal Al-Naji, 39, and her two daughters—Amna, 7, and Batoul, 4—as they slept inside their tent.

Her husband, Saeed Al-Naji, 40, survived, along with their three other children—two girls and a boy.

On the night of the collapse, the father had stepped out of the tent to fetch drinking water. When he returned, he heard what he describes to Al Manassa as “a massive roar.”

“I felt the whole ground shake. I ran toward the tent despite my injury, and I found the cliff had fallen on top of it. I started screaming, Amal! Girls! But there was no answer.”

“I swear I didn’t know what to do. My whole body froze—and I already can’t move properly because I was wounded by shrapnel in an earlier strike on a house near ours in Shujaiya. I stood there crying and screaming for people to come help us. My wife and the two girls were buried under the sand. People gathered, but we couldn’t reach them in time,” Saeed lamented.

“My wife was seven months pregnant. She miscarried while she was still under the sand,” he added.

On the edge of the cliff

Their neighbor in the adjacent tent, Basma Al-Afifi, a mother of four, believes residents living above the ridge contributed to the collapse.

“They used to pour water from the top of the cliff, loosening the sand,” she told Al Manassa.

Saeed had fled with his family from their home to the beach, where tents are crammed together in uneven rows. The cliff was eroding day after day. Each night, sand slipped quietly downward—a warning no one could afford to heed.

His wife is gone. Saeed now faces life alone with his surviving children, carrying his injury and a grief too heavy for a body already torn by war. This was not the first collapse along the shore since families began fleeing there. But it has been the most devastating.

Fear has tightened its grip on the remaining families, Basma said. Her tent is among the closest to the collapse site.

“After what happened, we can’t sleep,” she said. “The cliff falls without warning. The waves are strong. The cold is unbearable. We’re just sitting here waiting for our turn.”

Thirty-four-year-old Basma is originally from Beit Hanoun in the north of the strip. She first fled to Al-Mawasi in al-Qarara, northwest of Khan Younis, then moved to al-Aqsa University west of Khan Younis city, only to find no space available. Eventually, she ended up pitching a tent along the shoreline in Al-Mawasi, northwest of Gaza city.

Sanaa Al-Rifi, 60, displaced from Al-Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City, lives in a tent made of wooden poles covered with a sheet of nylon. A grandmother of nine whose son—the children’s father—was killed in an Israeli bombardment, she said, “The sea has spared no one. The cliff now threatens all the tents. Amaal and her daughters were the first victims—and maybe not the last.”

“I’m afraid for the children. No one is looking out for them,” she told Al Manassa. “I’m old. I can’t protect them from the collapsing sand or from the rising tide. Our house was bombed. I have no money. I can’t keep moving from place to place with all these children.”

Sanaa wonders aloud, “Every day we hear about a new camp opening. Who gets to stay in those camps? And who can afford the cost of transport when most of them are in east-central Gaza, far from here? Getting there is very expensive.”

She continued, her voice breaking, “I don’t even have anyone to dismantle or rebuild the tent. When we were first displaced, people volunteered to take us with them. Young men from the area helped me set up the tent and build a toilet. But now I’m terrified the sand will collapse while the children are climbing up and down the ridge all day.”

Months after the collapse that killed Amaal and her daughters, the area still lacks the bare minimum for survival. Families remain camped along the shore, even as the land beneath them continues to give way.

Coastal erosion

Fear lingers not only for those living beneath the cliff but also for families camped above it. Their tents, too, could tumble at any moment.

The October collapse came at the worst possible time, as rain intensified and temperatures dropped. These conditions further weaken the naturally fragile sandy ridge, turning life beside it into a daily gamble.

Standing along the dirt road near the collapse site, Abu Yahya Al-Breim gestures toward the stretch of cliff and speaks of the anxiety that has followed him ever since.

“We live on edge now,” he told Al Manassa. “The tent is very close to the cliff’s edge. Every time we hear strong wind or see a little sand falling, we’re afraid the whole thing will come down. After what happened, no one feels safe.”

Visible cracks along the ridge signal the possibility of another collapse that could swallow entire rows of tents, he said.

“The cliff has been eroding for a long time,” Abu Yahya added. “But after the war, the situation got worse because people are living on it, using water there, constantly moving across it after being displaced. The ground underneath is hollow. One strong tremor or heavy rain could bring down a large section. And we would be the first to pay the price.”

Coastal erosion—the gradual wearing away or disappearance of shoreline due to environmental and human factors—has plagued Gaza since the construction of its seaport in 1994. What was once an environmental concern has now become an immediate threat to displaced families.

By nature, the sandy ridge is unstable and quick to shift. Under relentless human pressure and the repeated pouring of water over its surface, even minor movement can trigger sudden collapse.

The official response remains limited.

“We’ve contacted the municipality more than once,” Abu Yahya said. “They told us they would conduct an engineering assessment. But to this day, we haven’t seen any measures to protect the area. People aren’t asking for miracles—just basic reinforcement to save lives.”

Some families have already left, returning to Gaza City despite the devastation there. Others remain trapped between fear and the absence of alternatives. No collective efforts have been recorded, so far, to secure the ridge or reduce its danger. Residents lack the equipment and materials needed. Instead, they rely on luck—and on shouted warnings passed from one tent to another.

Under the thumb of ‘deals’

Saeb Laqqan, spokesperson for the Khan Younis municipality, said the areas along the coastal ridge must be evacuated urgently.

“We need to clear these zones and establish alternative shelter points,” he told Al Manassa. “Otherwise, we fear tragedies even greater than this.”

But finding alternative shelter remains the core obstacle.

“The problem is identifying safe areas,” Laqqan explained. “People don’t have the money to relocate. Moving requires transportation expenses. And when they move, they often need new tents. They can’t afford transport—let alone buying another tent.”

He added that the number of displaced people far exceeds the capacity of available shelters.

“Shelter centers are limited, and the number of displaced is enormous. This is why people don’t change their displacement sites. They’ve become familiar with these areas. It’s not easy to keep asking families to leave every few months. It exhausts them financially and physically, and it disrupts their fragile social networks.”

On the technical side, Laqqan said the municipality is fully aware of the risks.

“From the first day after the collapse, we sent field teams to inspect the site. There is a reinforcement plan in place. But the conditions the Strip has endured over the past year have been extremely difficult.”

The ridge stretches along much of the coastline, and stabilizing it would require advanced engineering equipment and significant resources.

“During the war, we lost a large portion of our heavy machinery,” he said. Construction materials are also scarce. Cement and iron are only allowed by Israel in limited quantities and are allocated primarily to urgent humanitarian projects. “Our priorities are restricted and exceed the municipality’s capacity.”

The municipality’s revenue base has also collapsed.

“We used to rely on service fees and municipal charges,” Laqqan said. “Most of that has nearly stopped because residents themselves are living in severe hardship. There isn’t sufficient funding to launch a massive project like reinforcing the cliff.”

Meanwhile, situation reports published in December 2025 stated that all tents across the Gaza Strip were damaged and flooded during recent storms, leaving thousands of families without even temporary shelter. Civil defense crews received more than 5,000 distress calls since the start of the winter depressions.

These conditions have renewed urgent calls for international intervention to provide immediate humanitarian assistance, begin reconstruction, and secure safe housing that protects human dignity and life—after tents have proven entirely inadequate in Gaza.

“We are dealing with a city that has suffered massive destruction,” Laqqan said. “Most schools have become shelters. Very few homes remain habitable. Empty land is scarce, and the number of displaced is enormous. Even if we wanted to relocate people, there are no ready areas to absorb them without building new infrastructure.”

He ruled out the possibility of relocating families from the hazardous ridge in the near term.

“It requires extensive logistics: tents, mobile toilets, water, alternative electricity, security, and services. All of that is extremely costly, and the municipality does not currently have a budget capable of sustaining a project of that scale.”

Efforts are underway to coordinate with international organizations to establish alternative shelter sites, he said, but the process requires time, approvals, and preparations.

“Until a suitable location is secured, we are implementing mitigation measures around the ridge and monitoring the area daily.”

At the same time, Laqqan confirmed that the reconstruction file remains shrouded in uncertainty. No official information or clear timeline has been announced for launching rebuilding projects, despite the vast destruction inflicted on residential neighborhoods and infrastructure.

Reconstruction in Gaza has been effectively paralyzed after being tied to political and security conditions, including Israeli demands to disarm the resistance. The right of Palestinians to rebuild their lives has been turned into a bargaining chip—their recovery held hostage to political maneuvering that keeps millions of civilians deprived of the most basic foundations of life.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) had announced in November that more than 282,000 homes in Gaza were destroyed or damaged during the two-year Israeli genocidal war.

Laqqan renewed calls for the entry of prefabricated caravans as a temporary humanitarian solution for thousands of families who have lost their homes, while displaced people continue to endure life in tents, overcrowded shelters, and structurally unsound houses.

“The absence of a clear reconstruction vision further complicates the humanitarian crisis,” he said.

Winter is nearing its end. But for the displaced here, the crisis has no season and no horizon. The Rafah crossing has reopened. Aid remains stalled. Reconstruction exists only in statements, without a timetable or outline.

On the shore, seasons pass. The people remain—on the edge of a cliff that does not stop eroding.