UN Migration Agency Says Gaza Winter Shelter Supplies Cover 17% of Need, 8,600 Kits Held Over 'Dual-Use' Rules

Winter is close, and Gaza's shelter stockpile is nowhere near ready.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday, Oct. 9, that almost all of Gaza's population needs tents or shelter assistance. Available stocks and incoming supplies cover only about 17% of identified winter needs, IOM Director General Amy Pope said.

The agency says almost 2 million people in the territory require help. That is one year after a ceasefire was announced.

What the UN agency says is missing

About 1.8 million people live in displacement sites, most of them in flood-risk areas, according to the IOM. More than half of all tents and makeshift shelters are in poor condition and need replacing.

Buildings are not a reliable fallback. An assessment by an IOM partner identified more than 3,600 structures that need demolition, removal or evacuation because of safety risks. Many people are sheltering in war-damaged buildings at risk of collapse.

The IOM also pointed to the weather. The UN weather agency says this year's El Niño could be the strongest ever recorded. The IOM warned it could bring heavier rainfall, weaken unsafe buildings and cause flooding in a territory whose drainage systems are heavily damaged.

The flood-risk numbers

A joint assessment by the IOM, the Site Management Cluster and the Shelter Cluster, summarized in an OCHA report published Oct. 7, mapped the exposure site by site.

• 989 of Gaza's 1,764 displacement sites, or 56%, sit in medium- or high-risk flood areas.
• Those sites host an estimated 956,389 people, about 60% of the displaced population.
• 451 sites are in high-risk zones and hold more than 400,000 people who may need urgent relocation.
• 80% of the exposed sites are makeshift setups.

Last winter's storms damaged more than 42,000 tents across Gaza, according to the IOM and its partners.

The UN has been repeating the "nearly one million" figure as winter nears. It is the headline number from the OCHA-backed assessment, not the 1.8 million total living in displacement sites.

The 8,600 kits

The sharpest dispute is over supply. The IOM says about 8,600 emergency shelter kits, each made up of wood, a tarpaulin and basic materials, remain stranded outside Gaza after Israeli authorities determined they were dual-use.

Karl Baker, the IOM's regional crisis coordinator, told a Geneva press briefing that the items "have been determined to be potentially dual-use, or detained as a dangerous good." He warned that continued restrictions could worsen overcrowding and increase the spread of communicable diseases during winter.

Pope said Israeli constraints are making it hard for agencies to scale up. "Shelter materials must enter quickly, predictably and at the scale required," she said.

The IOM says it has gotten some tarpaulins and tents in, but not enough for the scale of need.

Israel's position is that its curbs on aid are driven by security concerns. COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid flows into Gaza, did not respond to requests for comment on the kits when the IOM made its statement. It has not publicly explained why the wood-and-tarp kits specifically were flagged.

The security argument is not frivolous in a territory where Hamas, which launched the October 2023 assault that started the war, has used civilian infrastructure for military purposes. But the IOM's list of what it wants admitted is concrete: tents, emergency shelter kits, temporary housing units and construction materials, plus equipment, fuel and spare parts for debris removal. The practical dispute is how any screening gets done and how fast.

The wider backdrop

The Gaza Ministry of Health said that as of early June 2026, more than 74,000 Palestinians had been killed and over 175,000 injured since October 2023.

The OCHA report also cites earlier assessments that 97% of Gaza's water was deemed unfit for human consumption between 2023 and 2025, and that about 80% of the energy infrastructure had been destroyed by 2025. Displaced families have almost no electricity or heating as temperatures fall.

What to watch

The IOM says the solutions are known and its teams are ready to deliver. "The solutions are known, the supplies are ready and humanitarian teams are prepared to deliver," Pope said.

It is unclear whether the 8,600 held kits will be cleared before the rains arrive. COGAT has not said whether it will release them or on what terms.

The IOM and its partners also have to decide which of the 451 high-risk sites to relocate first. More than 400,000 people live there.