Relief in Yemen, Tents on Gaza’s Exposed Coast

Saudi Arabia handed over 232 homes for displaced families in Yemen’s Hajjah governorate on Wednesday, November 4, while displaced families on Gaza’s coast faced winter in tents as Israeli authorities continued to prevent tents and critical construction materials from entering the territory. The two accounts put aid and its limits side by side: housing and water projects in Yemen, and families in Gaza trying to hold back seawater with soil-filled cooking pots.

Relief, Delivered Through Institutions

Saudi aid agency KSrelief implemented the Hajjah complex, which includes equipped homes with solar power systems, a secondary school, a mosque and two children’s playgrounds. The project is expected to benefit 1,994 people. Each unit has two rooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and an open courtyard; KSrelief is also providing 150 solar power systems to families in the host community.

Yemeni officials received the complex from KSrelief executives. Hajjah Governor Abdulkarim Al-Sunaini thanked Saudi Arabia, its leadership and people, saying the project offered displaced families an opportunity to rebuild their lives after years of suffering. The handover is a tangible delivery of shelter, but it sits within a conflict between the internationally recognised government and the Iran-backed Houthi movement that has damaged infrastructure and the economy and driven widespread displacement.

KSrelief also distributed 90 tents and 90 shelter kits in Tuban district, Lahj governorate, benefiting 540 people. Safe drinking water was pumped into Lahj for 1,919 displaced people and families in need. In neighbouring Aden governorate, the agency supplied water through 14 distribution points and distributed 454 storage containers, benefiting 371 families. A separate project in Al-Buraiqeh district provides approximately 2,800 people with daily potable water through 21 tanks, distribution and drainage systems, and 800 water containers. Regular laboratory testing checks the water against approved health and safety standards.

The need dwarfs any single project. The United Nations’ 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan estimates that 22.3 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance and protection, including about 5.2 million internally displaced people; 18.3 million face acute food insecurity. KSrelief, established in 2015, coordinates Saudi relief programmes in cooperation with UN agencies and international humanitarian organisations.

Families Left to Improvise

On Gaza’s coast near al-Qarara port, Anas al-Shami, 33, was trying to keep his family of six warm and dry in a dilapidated tent. His family left Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis, when it became part of Israel’s so-called “Yellow Zone,” beyond which Palestinians are not permitted to go. The family’s first refuge became overcrowded, and safer accommodation was unaffordable.

“I searched for land in displacement areas where I could pitch a tent, but overcrowding and high rental costs made that impossible,” al-Shami told Al Jazeera. “I was therefore forced to stay on the beach, despite the dangers facing my family and me.” Last winter, rain and seawater flooded the tent while the family slept. “My children's repeated exposure to water, cold and damp caused serious illness which threatened their lives,” he said.

Ibrahim Abu Tair, 47, displaced from eastern Khan Younis, shares a cramped tent on the shoreline with his seven children. “What hurts me most is feeling helpless in front of my children,” he said. “I cannot provide winter clothes to protect them from the cold or even a dry mattress for them to sleep on.” Wind and rising waves keep him awake; he fears another flood.

A Barrier Made From Damaged Pots

Near al-Qarara port, Mayasem Association, working with World Central Kitchen, is reusing cooking pots damaged by flames, corrosion and holes. Three donated pots, filled with soil and stacked about 150 centimetres high, form a temporary barrier against incoming water. Khalil Abu Lahia, the association’s emergency response coordinator, said the idea began as protection for the association’s safe space, which hosts education, school, cultural, arts and heritage programmes. “The idea later developed into an attempt to protect the displaced families' tents along the coastal strip.”

The barrier is temporary, and the shortage of safe shelter remains widespread. Gaza’s Winter Emergency Committee says about 200,000 dilapidated tents shelter hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Some 7,800 tents sit in hazardous locations, including beaches exposed to winter waves, and need urgent relocation. The committee also says Israeli forces destroyed about 70 percent of municipalities’ essential operational equipment and 90 percent of civil defence rescue equipment. With tents, caravans, construction materials and fuel in critically short supply, families and local responders are left confronting the weather with what they can salvage.