Beneath a torn plastic sheet, Saif Al-Hibl lies on the sand. A displaced man from the Al-Manshiyah neighborhood in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, he bought the shredded tent on credit after relentless Israeli bombardment left him and his family homeless. ‘The heat inside the tent is unbearable’, he says bitterly. ‘What brought us here is that there’s no space left in Gaza to pitch.’ He had hoped the sea breeze might ease the suffocating heat of displacement. Instead, he found the opposite: ‘This is hell.’

Once a site of leisure, Gaza’s port has become an overcrowded camp for hundreds of displaced families fleeing the northern half of the strip. It is now a landscape of crumbling tents, blistering sun, and near-total absence of humanitarian aid. Families live without access to clean water, proper shelter, or food, caught between war and a tightening siege.

Saif recounts his journey: ‘Evacuation orders fell on our heads from the drones. Then the shelling and gunfire began. I had no choice but to flee with my terrified children. There was no space in schools or official shelters, so I came here.’ Saif and his family now wash with seawater and send their children long distances to fetch drinking water. Since Israel began its war on Gaza on 7 October, 2023, his family has been displaced six times. Their home was partially destroyed. He tried to rebuild it with plastic sheeting and scrap materials, but ‘the shelling never stopped’.

Throughout the seaport, faces are marked by hunger, dehydration, and desperation. Families sleep in tents made of rags and nylon. The air is filled with dust and humidity. This is not simply a displacement crisis — it is a humanitarian collapse, amid what many on the ground describe as a genocidal war.

In one of the nearby tents, Maryam Taha shelters with her eight children. Her husband has been held in Israeli detention for over a year and a half, and she is now the family’s sole provider. ‘I left the school shelter after a night that felt like Judgment Day’, she says. ‘Blazing belts of fire, smoke bombs, and flares lit up the sky. We wandered the northern streets with no destination. Then my brother, who was already at the port, called to say there was a spot next to him. Kind people helped me put up a tent.’

But shelter is no guarantee of survival. ‘We eat once a day — sometimes nothing at all’, she says. Her youngest son, only a year and a half old, often cries himself to sleep from hunger. ‘My husband used to work for daily wages just to keep the children fed. Now I can’t even meet their most basic needs’, she says, before breaking down in tears. ‘By God, we haven’t tasted bread or flour in two and a half months.’

Nearby, 72-year-old Fatima Al-Najjar sits beneath a sheet of nylon that offers no protection from the sun. She was displaced months ago from her home in Shuja’iya, in the eastern part of Gaza City. The home she built ‘brick by brick’ was reduced to rubble by the Israeli military. ‘Now I live on the sand, in a tent with no mattress, no covers, and not even clean water’, she says.

Fatima suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes. ‘We fled under heavy bombing. I couldn’t carry my belongings or even my medication.’ She now uses seawater for washing and depends on volunteers — who pass by only every few days — for drinking water. ‘Food is often just boiled rice or lentils — if there’s anything at all. Some days we go without a single bite. My grandchildren cry themselves to sleep, and I can do nothing. All I want is a piece of bread to ease their hunger.’

The stories of Saif, Maryam, and Fatima are echoed in thousands of tents across Gaza. Earlier this week, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) issued a joint report listing Gaza among the ‘hotspots of highest concern’ for global hunger. It warned that 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are at risk of famine, due to ongoing displacement, war, and the complete restriction of humanitarian access.

The report states that famine conditions are likely to peak by September if aid does not reach the enclave immediately. Since 2 March, Israel has kept Gaza’s border crossings closed, blocking the entry of food, medicine, fuel, and humanitarian workers, while intensifying its military campaign across the strip. The FAO-WFP report adds that children under five in Gaza are among the most at-risk groups, with acute malnutrition and dehydration cases rising rapidly. Hospitals already overwhelmed by war injuries have little to no capacity to treat children suffering from starvation or water-borne illnesses.

A press statement by the Gaza Government Media Office on their official Telegram channel described the situation as a ‘full-fledged crime of ethnic cleansing and genocide’ and warned of a worsening catastrophe with each passing day. According to the statement, about 300,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from northern Gaza, and approximately 1,000 housing units have been destroyed since the latest escalation began.

International organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have condemned Israel’s actions as likely violations of international humanitarian law. They have called for immediate cessation of hostilities, unfettered humanitarian access, and independent investigations into alleged war crimes.

Yet despite these warnings, the siege on Gaza remains unbroken. Aid convoys wait at the border crossings, often denied entry or subjected to arbitrary restrictions. The few trucks that do make it through tend to carry a fraction of what is needed. Basic goods are either unavailable or sold at exorbitant prices beyond the reach of ordinary families.

In one corner of the port, Mehran Subaih, a resident of Ezbet Beit Hanoun, oversees a makeshift camp of 80 tents sheltering nearly 90 families. His voice is heavy with resignation. ‘Here, if you have money, you can eat. If you don’t, you and your children go to sleep hungry’, he says. ‘Before the crossings closed, we could distribute some food parcels. Now we can’t do anything. We just collect family names, but it’s meaningless. All the organisations have apologised — they say they can’t offer anything. There’s no food, no aid left.’

According to UNRWA, the number of displaced people in Gaza now exceeds 1.7 million — more than 70 percent of the population. Many have been displaced multiple times, and entire neighborhoods have been leveled. The agency itself has warned that it is on the verge of collapse without immediate funding and political support.

The collapse is not only material but psychological. Parents speak of their children losing weight, becoming withdrawn, or falling ill without access to medicine. Teachers describe students who once excelled in class now sitting silently, traumatised by what they’ve seen. Aid workers report that suicide attempts among the young have risen, as despair grows.

As night falls, a suffocating darkness blankets the port. There are no lights, no generators, no sounds except the howl of the wind tearing through the plastic covers. Children sleep on the sand — barefoot and hungry. Fathers sit in silence, lost in thoughts of the unknown. And still, the question lingers in every corner of Gaza’s battered shoreline: How long will the world stay silent? How many children must go hungry before the siege breaks? How many tents must rise on the sand before someone says: Enough?