TEHRAN - In Gaza, even the weather has become an enemy that the international community refuses to confront.
When a sand dune collapses onto a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing four children and a woman, it is tempting to describe the tragedy as another consequence of winter storms. But there is nothing natural about a catastrophe in which people have been driven from their homes, denied the means to rebuild them and left to face freezing temperatures under pieces of canvas. The rain may have triggered the collapse, but the conditions that made it deadly were created by a human-made siege.
Behind these tragedies lies a reality that no humanitarian statement can adequately capture: families who survived bombardment are now struggling to survive the cold, flooding and collapsing ground. They escaped Israeli attacks only to find themselves exposed to another form of danger.
For the fourth consecutive winter, Palestinians are being forced to endure conditions that no civilian population should be expected to survive. The first major winter storm reportedly flooded around 70,000 tents within approximately twelve hours.
Humanitarian organizations estimate that Gaza needs between 200,000 and 300,000 new tents or caravans to provide displaced families with even basic protection.
Meanwhile, around one million women and girls are facing hunger and the additional dangers of living in overcrowded, flooded shelters without adequate sanitation, privacy or protection.
These are not simply figures in an aid report. They represent a political and humanitarian failure of enormous proportions.
Israel has destroyed homes, residential neighborhoods and essential infrastructure, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Yet the same occupying power continues to restrict the entry of materials needed to rebuild shelters, repair infrastructure and conduct rescue operations. Cement, construction materials, heavy machinery, fuel and other essential supplies are subjected to restrictions that leave humanitarian organizations unable to respond adequately to civilian needs.
The contradiction is extraordinary: Palestinians are denied the right to return to functioning homes, while the materials required to make temporary shelters safe are also kept out. People are expected to survive in conditions that would be unacceptable anywhere else in the world. When a child dies from exposure or a family loses its shelter to flooding, the consequences cannot be separated from the policies that created this vulnerability.
A siege does not become less destructive simply because its victims are no longer being killed by bombs. Starvation, exposure, the destruction of sanitation systems and the denial of adequate shelter can also destroy civilian life.
International humanitarian law does not suspend its protections when the weapons change. The Fourth Geneva Convention places obligations on an occupying power concerning the welfare of the civilian population, while the prohibition on collective punishment is fundamental to the laws of war.
Humanitarian assistance must not become a bargaining instrument in a political or military confrontation. Yet Gaza continues to expose the distance between international law as written and international law as practiced.
The most striking contradiction is the international community's ability to mobilize when its strategic and economic interests are threatened, but is helpless when Palestinian lives are at stake.
That the world has failed to ensure that food, medicine, tents, fuel and rescue equipment reach Gaza is regrettable.
Why does the international system move with urgency when energy markets are threatened but respond with statements and conferences when children are freezing in flooded tents?
The answer lies in politics. Gaza's humanitarian crisis cannot be understood without examining the political protection Israel continues to receive from Washington. The United States has repeatedly presented itself as a defender of a rules-based international order, yet its approach to Palestine reveals the selective character of that claim.
Washington possesses enormous diplomatic influence over Israel. It cannot credibly claim to be powerless while continuing to provide Israel with political support and influence over the international response.
President Donald Trump's proposed "Board of Peace" must therefore be judged by what it delivers, not by the language used to promote it. A body that speaks of peace while failing to secure adequate humanitarian access, civilian protection and accountability cannot claim meaningful success.
Peace is not a diplomatic brand, a presidential initiative or a photograph of world leaders around a negotiating table. It is the protection of people whose lives have been devastated by war.
What kind of peace is being offered to a Palestinian mother whose children sleep on wet ground? What does a ceasefire mean to a family whose shelter collapses during the first heavy rainfall? And what credibility can an international mechanism claim when the basic requirements of survival remain subject to the permission of the very power responsible for the destruction?
A peace framework that avoids confronting the occupying power's obligations risks becoming an instrument for managing the consequences of occupation rather than ending them. Humanitarian assistance cannot substitute for justice, and temporary shelters cannot replace the right of Palestinians to live safely in their own homes. Nor can international guarantees mean anything if they are not accompanied by enforceable obligations and consequences for violations.
The United Nations and the governments that claim to defend international humanitarian law must move beyond expressions of concern. They must demand unrestricted and sustained humanitarian access, the entry of shelter materials, fuel and reconstruction equipment, and
effective protection for civilians. They must also insist on accountability where international law has been violated. The delivery of aid should never depend on political convenience or the
There is an especially cruel injustice in the fact that Palestinian children have to survive another winter without knowing whether their tents will withstand the next storm. They did not choose displacement. They did not destroy their homes. They did not impose the blockade. Yet they are paying the price for decisions made by governments and political leaders far beyond their control.
The world must stop describing Gaza's suffering as an unfortunate humanitarian emergency. It is a political crisis rooted in occupation, destruction and the denial of fundamental rights. The rain
is falling, the tents are being flooded, the children are dying, and the international system is still debating the language of peace.
A peace board that cannot protect a child from freezing has failed its most basic test. International law that cannot secure shelter for a displaced family risks becoming little more than a declaration without consequence. And a world that cannot mobilize to protect starving women and freezing children must confront its moral bankruptcy.
Gaza does not need another promise of peace. It needs protection, justice, unrestricted humanitarian access and an end to the siege.
Nelson Mandela had said, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”