Thousands in Gaza struggle in tents amid cold, stormy weather
Strong winds, rain and winter are adding to the suffering of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, with thousands of families living in worn-out tents after their homes were destroyed in Israel’s bombardment of the coastal enclave.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza since a ceasefire came into effect last month, pausing Israel’s 15-month assault on the territory. But most people found their homes destroyed or heavily damaged.
Families have since struggled to find shelter amid mounds of debris and destruction across the besieged enclave.
A spokesperson for the Gaza City municipality told Al Jazeera that the city did not have enough resources to help the displaced amid the storm, adding that sewage and rainwater entered hundreds of tents and shelters.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from a makeshift encampment in the courtyard of a school in Gaza City, Mahmoud Riyad Khalil al-Fayoumi said he has been living in a tent alongside three other families.
“The blankets are very wet,” said al-Fayoumi, explaining that he sent his two-month-old baby and his brother, who has a spinal cord injury, to stay with other people due to the harsh weather conditions.
“We don’t know what to do. We don’t know where to go. This is our situation here.”
Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said heavy rain and wind had forced many Palestinians to leave a makeshift encampment in the western part of the city.
Basic supplies such as warm clothing also are not widely available, worsening the situation.
“People right now here are not only lacking shelter, but also the very essential supplies that provide them some warmth and protection from these terrible weather conditions,” Mahmoud said.
In its latest update on Wednesday, the United Nations humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) said with more than 500,000 people returning to the Gaza and North Gaza governorates, “the need for food, water, tents and shelter materials in that area remains critical”.
Despite increased deliveries of humanitarian aid since the ceasefire took hold on January 19, shelter assistance has been limited.
Earlier this week, the Gaza Government Media Office accused Israel of restricting the flow of aid and shelters into the territory.
“Securing shelters has become an urgent humanitarian need that cannot be delayed. It is the most pressing need at this moment,” it said in a statement earlier this week.
Tess Ingram, a communications manager at UNICEF, the UN’s child rights agency, said Palestinians in Gaza are ill-equipped to withstand the cold weather because they have lost so much during the war.
The situation is particularly dangerous for children, Ingram told Al Jazeera from Gaza City.
“For kids in these conditions, it’s not only frightening to be outside, exposed and in the cold, but it’s also very dangerous for their wellbeing,” she said. “We’ve had a number of children in Gaza die of hypothermia and it’s clear here when you meet with families that they don’t have what they need to protect them from that cold. Families are lacking warm clothes for their children. There’s many children without shoes.”
Displaced Palestinians also continue to face harsh conditions in other parts of Gaza, as well.
“The tent flew away and the people were in disarray,” Saqer Abdelal told Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah in the central part of the enclave. “We’re now transporting our belongings to a man who agreed to host us until the winter ends.”
“This is more difficult to us than displacement,” said Anwar Hellis, another Palestinian in Deir el-Balah. “We woke up at night and found our tents destroyed due to the wind. Our clothes and food were filled with sand.”
In southern Gaza, the Rafah municipality has called for 40,000 additional tents and emergency shelter units for residents. The city is still hosting thousands of displaced people whose homes have been destroyed in other areas.
The municipality also said it does not have enough heavy machinery, which is hindering the reopening of roads and the clearing of rubble.
Source: Apps Support
A referendum on crime? What to know about Ecuador’s presidential election
It was just 18 months ago that Daniel Noboa, 37, won Ecuador’s presidency, becoming the youngest man ever elected to the office.
Now, on Sunday, he faces the polls once more.
This time, however, a bigger prize is at play: a full four-year term in the presidential palace. Since Noboa’s last victory was in a snap election, he has been limited to serving out the remainder of his predecessor’s term.
In Sunday’s race, Noboa will face off against 15 contenders, including left-wing lawmaker Luisa Gonzalez, his main competition in the last election. The vote is poised to be a referendum on his brief stint in office so far.
Noboa entered office as a law-and-order candidate, spearheading several measures expanding the powers of law enforcement – sometimes at the expense of oversight and civil liberties. But Ecuador has nevertheless continued to suffer from high levels of violence and organised crime.
Who are the candidates? Which issues are voters focused on? And what can opinion polls tell us about the state of the race? We answer those questions and more in this brief explainer.
What is Ecuador’s voting process?
The first round of voting will occur on Sunday, February 9. In order to win outright, a candidate must secure more than 50 percent of the vote, or at least 40 percent with a 10-point advantage over the candidate in second place.
If a candidate does not pass that threshold in the first round, a second round of voting will be held on April 13, featuring the top two candidates.
Is the presidency the only office up for grabs?
No. This is a general election. All seats in the country’s 151-member National Assembly will also be up for grabs, and those elected to the legislature will also serve four-year terms.
Why has Noboa’s term in office been so short?
President Noboa was first elected in October 2023 after his predecessor Guillermo Lasso, faced with impeachment proceedings, invoked a constitutional mechanism known as the “muerte cruzada” or “crossed death”.
No president had ever deployed the muerte cruzada before. Not only did it end Lasso’s term, but it also dissolved Ecuador’s legislature, triggering snap elections.
At the time, Noboa was a first-term member of the National Assembly, and he was among the elected officials affected by the muerte cruzada.
The heir to a banana business fortune, Noboa ultimately formed his own party and ran for the presidency, winning a tight race that progressed to a second round. He was 35 years old at the time.
He then completed what would have been the remainder of Lasso’s term, a period of 18 months. Now, he is seeking a full four-year term of his own.
What do the polls say?
Noboa will face competition from a crowded field of candidates. But his biggest competition is likely to be Luisa Gonzalez, whom he defeated by a margin of less than four points in 2023.
Gonzalez represents the left-leaning Citizen Revolution party, founded by former President Rafael Correa.
Most polls show Noboa in the lead – but short of the threshold to avoid a run-off. It is very likely that, just as in 2023, the election will proceed to a second round that pits Noboa against Gonzalez.
Polls show no other candidate with enough support to challenge the frontrunners, but pre-election polling doesn’t always tell the whole story. Noboa himself barely registered in voter intention polls prior to the first round of voting in 2023.
Who else is running?
Some familiar faces are in the lineup. Jan Topic, a right-wing businessman who ran in 2023, is competing again, reprising his call for iron-fisted – or “mano dura” – policies to combat crime.
Leonidas Iza, president of the country’s powerful Indigenous confederation CONAIE, is also a returning candidate. He was a prominent critic of former President Lasso and has campaigned on a platform of greater sovereignty and opportunities for Indigenous peoples.
Another candidate is likely to serve as a reminder of Ecuador’s struggles with violence.
In 2023, the presidential race was rocked when an anticorruption candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, was shot and killed after leaving a rally, shortly before the vote. He had sought to highlight the link between organised crime and government corruption.
His former running mate, Andrea Gonzalez, will be in the race on Sunday.
What do the polls say about the National Assembly?
In the race for control of the legislature, the parties of Noboa and Gonzalez also lead the rest of the field.
Most polls in January showed Noboa’s National Democratic Action (ADN) party leading Gonzalez’s Citizen Revolution (RC) by varying margins. Only one poll found the RC ahead of the ADN by about three points.
Currently, the National Assembly has 137 spots, and Citizen Revolution holds the most seats of any single party: 48. But after Sunday’s election, the National Assembly will expand to 151 seats, and Noboa’s party is expected to make significant gains.
What issues do voters care most about?
A number of issues have emerged as top priorities in public opinion polls, such as the rising cost of living, a lack of adequate economic opportunities, and a series of electricity blackouts that have made life difficult for residents of the country.
But a January poll by the data firm Comunicaliza suggested that one issue takes precedence over all others: crime and insecurity. It outranked the second-highest concern, the lack of employment opportunities, by about 14 points.
“It’s been reflected in survey after survey that this is concern number one,” Ivan Briscoe, an expert on Latin American politics at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.
Why has violence become such a problem in Ecuador?
Ecuador was once seen as a country that was safer and more stable than other parts of South America. It gained a reputation as an “island of peace” in a region otherwise known for cocaine cultivation and trafficking.
But in recent years, an explosion of violence and organised criminal activity has shocked the country.
“Ecuador had 7,000 murders last year with a population of 18 million people, making it the highest murder rate in South America. And that’s in a country which for decades was known as a peaceful country,” Briscoe said.
“It throws a light on the state’s inability to respond, but also raises the question of the complicity of state officials in criminal ventures and, thus, the scale of corruption.”
Ecuador sits on the Pacific coast between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest producers of cocaine.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say drug-trafficking groups started to push into Ecuador’s territory, seeking to take advantage of the country’s ports.
The pandemic also wrought devastation on Ecuador’s economy, leaving many youths unemployed and vulnerable to recruitment from criminal networks.
Noboa has blamed his predecessors for allowing cocaine production to take root in Ecuador. In October, his government announced that the production of coca – the raw ingredient for the drug – was detected on approximately 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of land.
What solutions have been put forward?
Voters have largely placed their faith in harsh solutions.
In April, for instance, the country voted largely in favour of reforms that would formalise the military’s role in public security and impose stricter penalties for crimes like drug trafficking.
Noboa himself has shown a willingness to suspend key civil liberties in the name of advancing security.
In January 2024, Noboa announced that the country was “at war” with criminal groups and declared a state of internal armed conflict, expanding the role of the military in law enforcement activities.
Thus far, the results have been mixed. While the murder rate dipped slightly in 2024, it remains well above pre-pandemic levels.
Abuses have also come to light that raise questions about the military’s expanded powers. In one case, surveillance footage appeared to show a military truck abducting four youths in the port city of Guayaquil. Their charred remains were later found near a military base.
But Briscoe said that, for the time being, Ecuadorean politics is dominated by tough-on-crime rhetoric and ideas.
“Nobody is going to suggest negotiating with criminal groups. That is not on the agenda of any candidate,” he said.
But he added that security measures alone would not be enough to address the roots of crime in Ecuador.
“When you can’t leave your house because of crime, you will want the state to respond,” he said.
“Over the long run, however, those security-minded policies like deploying the military will tend to fail if they’re not accompanied by other more systemic, far-reaching approaches which deal with corruption, socioeconomic inequality and criminal investigation.”
Source: Apps Support
Palestinians return home in Gaza, but without their loved ones
Gaza City, Palestine – Aya Hassouna is thin with a pale face. Her eyes are red, and her voice is full of sadness.
She had a husband, Abdullah, and two children, four-year-old Hamza, and two-year-old Raghad. But as she returned with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians to northern Gaza after months of displacement in the south of the enclave, she was travelling alone.
Abdullah, Hamza and Raghad were killed in an Israeli attack on August 9, as they prepared for a day trip to the beach, an attempt to escape the daily horrors of the war.
Aya described a strong explosion, smoke, and then her children lying dead on the ground with blood pouring from their heads.
Abdullah, who had earlier gone to buy ingredients for a cake and some snacks for the beach, was dead too.
“Since that time, I have been trying to be strong. I am trying to endure the separation,” Aya said. “But everything around me reminds me of them.”
Her journey back home to Gaza City’s as-Saftawi neighbourhood last week, as part of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, had many of those painful reminders. Abdullah had been desperate to go back home. He’d already set aside the clothes he would wear for the journey. She took her husband’s outfit with her on her long walk north, as well as those of her children. And she walked, alone.
“Sadness was eating away at my heart,” Aya said. “Sometimes I cried. I looked at the families walking together, a mother, a father and their children. As for me, I was alone without any of them.”
Aya arrived at her family’s home and reunited with her mother, but she is not sure how long the journey took. Her mind was preoccupied with the heartache of the losses that still haunt her.
Soon after, she decided to go and see whatever was left of her house, which had been destroyed during the war. As she searched through the rubble for any of their old belongings to keep as memories, she found herself imagining searching for her lost loved ones, and finally finding them again.
“What can I do? This is my fate.”
The dutiful son
So many of those returning to Gaza’s north have had to go through the same pain as Aya, returning home, but without their loved ones.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, including more than 17,400 children.
Jawaher Shabeer’s son, Walid, was one of those killed. They fled Gaza City together at the start of the war, moving to Rafah, in the far south of the Strip.
Walid was Jawaher’s eldest son. He was 26 and “dutiful and affectionate”. It was that love for his mother and his family that led to Walid leaving the family’s tent in Rafah at the end of Ramadan in April last year, trying to find work to alleviate the famine-like conditions the family were living through.
“He found work with one of his friends near Khan Younis,” Jawaher said. “He promised that he would return with okra to cook.”
But Walid didn’t come back. Jawaher was told that he had been shot by the Israeli army in Khan Younis.
The month passed heavily on Jawaher’s heart. She says she lost the ability to speak. Instead, in her mind, she pictured Walid, imagining his return.
Jawaher made her own return to the north with the rest of her family. But before she left, she would make one last stop to visit Walid’s grave.
“I cried over Walid,” Jawaher said. “How would I go back without him? How will I meet my daughters and granddaughters in Gaza City without Walid, that kind young man, that companion of mine.”
Source: Apps Support