Now that winter is approaching, the suffering of families who have been displaced continues to deepen. Think about it: living in a tent or a partly ruined building is bad enough, but how much worse in winter storms? That is the daily life for thousands of displaced people in Gaza.
Here’s the thing: Even life-saving supplies are not reaching those who need them. So, the UN has called for urgent humanitarian assistance. On 11 November 2026, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher called on all parties to allow immediate access for winter supplies and the operation of all border crossings and to provide greater assistance to humanitarian organizations.
His message is clear: life-saving humanitarian assistance cannot wait for political drivers.
Why Is Gaza Facing an Urgent Winter Humanitarian Crisis?
The harsh realities of winter for displaced families
Winter is coming, and you probably think of warm nights in your duvet and winter woollies, don’t you? But for people fleeing their homes because of conflict and war, it’s a terrible time.
Ever since the loss of homes, tens of thousands of families in Gaza are living in tents, temporary accommodations, and damaged buildings. Here’s the thing: They offer almost nothing to protect them from torrential rain and dropping temperatures.
The last heavy rain has already caused flooding at some of the displaced sites, devastating the semi-permanent structures and complicating everyday life. People are trying to keep themselves and their possessions dry, find warm shelter to rest, and protect children and the elderly from the biting cold.
It’s not just the cold that’s killing people. It’s the staggering mix of displacement, crumbling infrastructure, the lack of basic necessities, and the lack of humanitarian funding.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports that a further winter in old tents and crumbling buildings await 1.65 million people in Gaza. In addition, they estimate that there are some 950,000 individuals who live in areas of medium-to-high flooding risk.
If we’ve learned anything from these fragile families, it’s that just a few days of relentless rain can leave them without a roof, straining their resources, clothing, and food. What can we do to help?
UN Relief Chief Calls for Immediate Entry of Winter Supplies
November 11 Tom Fletcher, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, makes an urgent appeal to deliver winter aid to Gaza without delay.
Here’s the catch: The UN and the humanitarian agencies working with them have already identified what supplies are needed for winter response. However, access restrictions, lack of funding, and funding gaps continue to prevent aid from reaching those in need.
Fletcher said that “political developments cannot be a reason to withhold humanitarian aid. People suffering the freezing cold, floods, and living in such terrible conditions cannot wait for politics.”
The UN’s proposed winter response includes several essential supplies:
- Durable shelters and tents: Stronger temporary shelters that can withstand heavy rainfall, strong winds, and difficult weather conditions.
- Warm clothing and blankets: Essential protection for children, elderly people, and families living in temporary accommodation.
- Bedding and household supplies: Mattresses, blankets, and other basic items to help displaced families maintain safer living conditions.
- Safe heating solutions: Equipment that can provide warmth while reducing the risk of fires, smoke exposure, and other safety hazards.
- Generators and fuel: Necessary for maintaining electricity and supporting essential humanitarian services.
- Water pumps and drainage equipment: Required to remove floodwater from temporary settlements and prevent further damage.
- Debris removal and explosive ordnance clearance equipment: Important for making affected areas safer and improving access for humanitarian workers.
These supplies are not additional comforts. They are essential requirements for protecting human lives during the winter months.
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Why Is Opening All Border Crossings So Important?
Relief Supplies in Gaza – The Challenge
Interested in becoming a humanitarian? What does it take to deliver humanitarian aid in a crisis? One of the biggest challenges for humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza is the inability to get sufficient humanitarian aid to the people.
This is the catch: humanitarian aid depends on open supply lines. Medicines, food, and support supplies, as well as clean drinking water, electricity, and fuel, must cross borders and customs stations to be stored before they’re distributed. When borders are closed, or crossings are closed along the way, it sends shocks through the chain.
This can slow down trucks delivering vital supplies, aid groups may not have sufficient resources in stock, and first responders may have difficulty getting aid to where it is needed most. In its report on the case in October 2026, the Norwegian Refugee Council said only 15 trucks with dual-use items would be permitted to cross the border into Gaza from Jordan each week. It also said it would take over seven months to deliver needed materials for shelters at this rate.
The organization further reported that almost 300,000 families would require winter shelter assistance, while only around 34% of the $283 million needed for the minimum winter shelter response had been provided or pledged at the time of its report.
This highlights why opening all crossings is such an important part of the UN’s appeal.
Allowing more humanitarian supplies to enter would help organizations deliver shelter materials, medical equipment, food, and other essential items more efficiently.
However, access is not only about bringing supplies into Gaza. Humanitarian organizations must also be able to move those supplies safely within the region and reach communities in need.
Why Local NGOs Are Essential to the Humanitarian Response
NGOs and Humanitarian Relief
Here’s the thing: The UN appeal largely depends on enabling the international and local NGOS to continue doing their important humanitarian work.”
You may not realize it, but though international agencies are essential to administer large-scale emergencies, the early responders are the local NGOs. These are the NGOs that truly understand community needs.
These organizations have developed rapport with local families, understand the issues affecting these households, and are better at identifying the most vulnerable. Their work becomes even more crucial in emergencies where transport, communication, and access can be difficult.
Local NGOs contribute to humanitarian operations in several ways:
1. Identifying families who need immediate assistance
Local organizations understand their communities and can help identify households that are most vulnerable, including families with young children, older people, people with disabilities, and those living in unsafe shelters.
2. Distributing essential supplies
They support the distribution of food packages, blankets, clothing, hygiene kits, clean water, and emergency shelter materials.
3. Providing community-level support
Local NGOs can help families access healthcare, psychological support, protection services, and other essential assistance.
4. Reaching communities that larger organizations may struggle to access
Their local networks, community relationships, and knowledge of the area help humanitarian assistance reach the people who would otherwise be overlooked.
5. Monitoring changing needs
Local organizations can provide regular updates about shortages, damaged shelters, health concerns, and emerging risks, helping humanitarian agencies adjust their response.
Supporting local NGOs is therefore not simply about involving more organizations in relief operations. It is about strengthening the humanitarian response by ensuring that assistance reaches people through organizations that understand their needs.
However, local organizations also need reliable funding, essential supplies, security, operational freedom, and long-term partnerships. Donors and partners should not expect them to manage increasingly complex humanitarian emergencies without adequate resources.
The Growing Funding Challenge for Humanitarian Organizations
Humanitarian organizations are facing a huge problem: there is a stark difference between the amount of financial resources they need versus the amount that are available to fund their work.
Emergency responses require a big cash infusion. There are agencies purchasing equipment and transportation, running storage facilities, paying field staff, operating distribution hubs, and providing critical services.
Here’s the thing: When funds don’t stretch, it’s that much harder for even the most effective of organizations to manage operations.
The winter response in Gaza is just one example. The NRC’s October report highlighted crucial funding gap for winter shelter assistance, and many families will face winter without support.
Funding shortages can affect humanitarian work in several ways:
- Fewer families receive emergency shelter materials.
- Food and medical supplies become harder to maintain.
- Local NGOs struggle to pay staff and continue their programs.
- Emergency transportation and distribution operations become more expensive.
- Long-term recovery and reconstruction activities face further delays.
For NGOs, funding is not simply an administrative requirement. It determines how many people they can support, how quickly they can respond, and whether essential services can continue.
Governments, international donors, philanthropic organizations, and private-sector partners all have an important role in supporting humanitarian operations.
How Can Technology and AI Help NGOs Improve Humanitarian Responses?
While the immediate priority in Gaza is ensuring humanitarian access and delivering physical supplies, technology can also help NGOs organize their operations more effectively.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital tools and data-management systems can support humanitarian organisations in planning, coordination, resource allocation and emergency response.
However, technology cannot replace the physical supplies, trained workers and community relationships required to deliver humanitarian assistance.
Here are five practical ways AI can support NGOs working in humanitarian emergencies.
1. Identifying Communities That Need Immediate Assistance
During emergencies, NGOs receive information from field workers, community representatives, local authorities and partner organisations.
Managing this information manually can become difficult, especially when organisations are dealing with large numbers of affected families.
AI-powered data analysis tools can help organisations organise information, identify patterns and highlight communities that may require urgent assistance.
For example, NGOs could use verified field reports to identify areas experiencing repeated flooding, shortages of shelter materials or limited access to healthcare.
This can help humanitarian teams make better-informed decisions about where to prioritise their resources.
However, AI-generated assessments must be checked against reliable field information to avoid overlooking vulnerable communities.
2. Improving Humanitarian Supply Management
Getting supplies to affected communities requires careful planning.
NGOs need to know how much food, medicine, clothing and shelter material is available, where it is stored and which communities require it.
AI-powered inventory and data-management systems can help organisations:
- Track available supplies.
- Monitor stock shortages.
- Estimate future material requirements.
- Organise distribution records.
- Identify potential delays in supply chains.
These tools can help organisations reduce administrative workloads and improve coordination between different relief teams.
3. Supporting Faster Emergency Communication
During humanitarian emergencies, information needs to move quickly between field workers, local NGOs, international organisations and affected communities.
AI-powered translation and communication tools can help organisations translate emergency messages, prepare public information materials and communicate important instructions in different languages.
This can be particularly useful when organisations work with communities that speak different languages or have limited access to traditional communication channels.
However, emergency messages must always be reviewed to ensure that translations are accurate, culturally appropriate and easy to understand.
4. Helping NGOs Prepare Funding Proposals and Budgets
Humanitarian organisations need financial support to maintain their programmes and respond to emergencies.
Preparing funding proposals, project budgets, concept notes and donor reports can take considerable time, particularly for smaller NGOs with limited administrative staff.
AI-powered NGO tools can help organisations prepare structured proposal drafts, organise project activities, develop budget outlines and improve documentation.
For example, an organisation planning a winter shelter programme could use AI to create an initial project proposal outlining:
- The humanitarian problem.
- The communities affected.
- The project’s objectives.
- Proposed activities.
- Expected outcomes.
- Required resources and estimated costs.
These drafts still need to be reviewed by experienced NGO professionals and adapted to donor guidelines, local realities and actual project requirements.
5. Strengthening Coordination Between NGOs
Humanitarian emergencies often involve multiple organisations working in the same region.
Without proper coordination, organisations may duplicate activities in some areas while other communities receive insufficient assistance.
Digital platforms can help NGOs share relevant operational information, monitor activities and coordinate their distribution plans.
AI can further support this process by organising reports, summarising updates and identifying possible gaps in humanitarian coverage.
However, sharing information must be handled responsibly. Sensitive beneficiary details, personal information and location data should be protected through strong data-security practices.
Why Responsible AI Matters in Humanitarian Work
Although AI offers opportunities for improving humanitarian operations, NGOs must be careful about how they use these technologies.
Humanitarian organisations often work with refugees, displaced families, children and people facing extremely vulnerable circumstances.
Their personal information may include names, locations, medical records, family details and other sensitive information.
If this information is collected, stored or shared without proper protection, it can put vulnerable individuals at risk.
NGOs should therefore follow important principles when adopting AI:
- Protect personal and beneficiary information.
- Avoid uploading sensitive community data into unapproved AI platforms.
- Verify AI-generated information before making decisions.
- Maintain human oversight in decisions affecting vulnerable people.
- Ensure that technology does not discriminate against particular communities.
- Use AI to support humanitarian workers rather than replace their judgement.
The purpose of introducing AI into humanitarian operations should be to improve efficiency while protecting the dignity, safety and rights of affected communities.
What Does This Situation Mean for NGOs Around the World?
The Gaza crisis should shake NGOs and humanitarian agencies all over the globe. Here is something that might knock you off your chair: emergencies are tougher than they have been in the past. Donors now expect agencies to respond simultaneously to conflict, displacement, climate change, hunger, disease, and spiraling financial pressures.
But here’s the problem: while the above is going on, the NGOs themselves are also expected to disburse funds more quickly, better resource management and be able to show concrete results to their funders. But what does this mean for NGOs?
Firstly, local organizations require more robust funding. There must be a recognition that local NGOs should not be simply seen as implementing partners; they are major actors in the humanitarian response themselves and deserve access to funding and decision making.
The immediate second step should be humanitarian access. Relief supplies are of no use unless humanitarian actors can access and deliver the much-needed aid to the population.
Funds should get to where they need to be in a timely way. Slow funding affects critical service provision. Donors should aim to give donors more flexible funding arrangements that NGOs can respond rapidly to.
Finally, technology should support humanitarian work. While AI and digital solutions can improve efficiency, their focus should be on supporting the real needs of communities. Humanitarian aid is not a one-time intervention, it is work that must be sustained over time. Emergency relief is essential, but these communities need health, education, good shelter and the ability to start their lives again.
Conclusion: Humanitarian Assistance Cannot Wait
The newest appeal to Gaza by the UN should be a reminder: Crises cannot be solved with scolding notes of concern. They need action, funding, unfettered access and for the UN and others to work closely with communities.
When winter arrives, see families in emergency shelters needing blankets, warm clothing, heat sources and sturdy accommodations? They cannot wait another minute.
We need to reopen every border crossing, give humanitarian organizations unfettered access, and provide financial assistance in order to prevent unnecessary pain and suffering.
For NGOs, it highlights the need to deepen local partnerships, improve the efficient use of resources, and use technology responsibly in order to make the most of relief efforts. Yes, AI can make humanitarian efforts more efficient; but it doesn’t replace the human factor that is behind this critical aid.
In the end, it shouldn’t matter what the response looks like on paper, in terms of dollars and cargo. It should only matter whether aid gets to people, preserves their dignity, and enables them to live with safety.
Humanitarian support cannot be postponed until conditions are more comfortable. For families set to endure yet another winter in the cold and underdressed, time is of the essence.
