With thousands of buildings damaged and the punishing winter fast approaching, displaced Palestinians sheltering inside Gaza’s ruins face two bitter choices: sleep beneath unstable concrete or risk having nowhere to stay at all.

Pieces of concrete sometimes break loose without warning, and stones tumble from damaged walls. Yet fear of the coming winter drives families to seek any shelter with a concrete roof, no matter how fractured it may be. They view these broken structures as their final line of defence against the looming winter storms.

However, this choice carries potentially catastrophic risks. Instead of keeping families warm and dry, cracked ceilings can let rainwater seep through, flooding their makeshift living spaces.

Displaced families are already making exhausting efforts to patch gaps and holes, using whatever remnants of plastic or cloth they can find to block the biting cold and winter winds. For many, even the short walk to collect water means passing beneath sections of a building that appear ready to collapse at any moment.

Families are trapped inside bomb-damaged houses, schools and universities. Cracked walls and weakened ceilings surround them, but leaving could mean returning to sodden tents, sleeping in the mud outdoors or beginning yet another agonising search for shelter.

Read: Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis

“Unfortunately, whenever we sit here, stones fall on us,” said Maher Awad Khader, a displaced resident sheltering with his family at the Islamic University of Gaza. “Everything is in terrible condition, even when we go to carry water. I have been here for........

© Middle East Monitor