Gaza Families Shelter in Buildings at Risk of Collapse — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Gaza's housing stock has been devastated, with 371,888 units — 76.6% of the total — destroyed or damaged as of October 2025, according to a joint UN, World Bank and EU assessment.
- Masada Abu Jarad, 60, has pitched a tent under a partially collapsed roof inside her Gaza City apartment; the Palestinian Red Crescent visited last week and told the family to leave.
- A six-storey war-damaged residential building collapsed in Gaza City on September 16, killing 21 people including 12 children, intensifying fears for residents of other unstable structures.
- Abdullah Abu Hajar, 40, shares the damaged al-Najma building with roughly 17 families (50–60 people) and stays awake each night listening for cracking sounds in the walls.
- Islam Hassanein, 36, a mother of five, has lived for nearly a year in a single rubble-cleared room on the third floor of a leaning, visibly damaged building and dreads winter flooding.
- UNICEF estimates nearly 84% of Gaza's population — more than 1.76 million people — are living in overcrowded displacement sites or inadequate shelters.
- Rebuilding Gaza will require more than $71bn over the next decade, while Israeli restrictions continue to block entry of tents, tarpaulins and other essential shelter materials.
Why it matters: More than 1.76 million people — 84% of Gaza's population — are sheltering in damaged or inadequate structures, and Israeli restrictions on shelter materials leave families unable to move to safer ground before winter rains hit. The September 16 collapse that killed 21 people, including 12 children, is the exact scenario families like Abdullah Abu Hajar's are bracing for nightly.
Ask SkimNews
