A group of 53 countries and organizations, including Türkiye, urged Israel on Thursday to allow unrestricted humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, as a nine-month-old baby died of hypothermia amid severe weather and flooding that displaced thousands of Palestinians sheltering in tents.
Sarah MacIntosh, the U.K.’s permanent representative to the U.N., delivered a statement on behalf of the co-signatories of the Gaza Call to Action on Humanitarian Access and Health, led by the U.K., Qatar and Jordan.
"The comprehensive peace plan, endorsed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803, provides for the immediate entry into Gaza of full humanitarian assistance at levels no lower than those agreed on 19 January 2025. This has not yet been realized," MacIntosh said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters.
She noted that since the October 2025 cease-fire, "progress to improve the humanitarian situation is possible when political will allows," but said that "as winter sets in, far too many people in Gaza are still without adequate shelter and risk exposure to hypothermia, respiratory infections, waterborne diseases, and other preventable illnesses."
"Following elections in Israel, we reiterate our call to the incoming government of Israel to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access throughout Gaza and through all available crossings and land routes," she said.
MacIntosh urged Israel to restore "the medical referral pathway to hospitals in East Jerusalem and the West Bank," to "open and expedite transparent criminal investigations into attacks against healthcare and humanitarian workers," and to "allow senior international delegations and journalists to access Gaza."
Pledging support for relief efforts, she said: "The countries gathered here today commit to supporting humanitarian efforts in Gaza by providing support for urgent winterisation preparation efforts, including shelter, water, sanitation, and health supplies to reduce suffering and to mitigate public health risks."
Meanwhile, a nine-month-old baby died of hypothermia on Thursday, his father and a doctor told AFP, after days of harsh weather and flooding in the Gaza Strip that displaced thousands of Palestinians living in tents.
The doctor, who saw the child and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that nine-month-old Kinan Ahmed Raqiq "died from hypothermia inside his family's displacement tent" in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Ahmed Raqiq, told AFP that his son Kinan died of cold during the night in their tent in southern Gaza.
"I woke up only to see his skin had turned blue so I rushed him to Nasser hospital, but he had already died from hypothermia and frozen to death," he said.
"I am in complete shock. I found myself holding my son wrapped in burial shroud," he said outside the hospital, dried tears on his face as he held his son wrapped in a white sheet.
Heavy rain last week flooded tens of thousands of people's tents in Gaza, where virtually the whole population has been displaced at least once by three years of Israel's genocidal attacks.
Five people, including three children, died the day after the flooding when a sandy embankment collapsed onto their tents.
Since then, hundreds of displaced families have been seen fleeing camps in parts of Gaza City and central and northern areas of the territory after they were inundated by rainwater.
James Elder, spokesman on Gaza for the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, warned that the flooding was just the beginning of the cold season.
"It's very important to know how bad things are in Gaza. It's not yet winter," Elder said.
"We're weeks away from winter, so we are getting unprecedented rain and cold."
The U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that as of Nov. 8, 26,000 households were affected by storms.
Around 65% of Gaza's people are still living displaced in tents or other temporary shelters, OCHA said.
Israel and Hamas declared a cease-fire on Oct.10, 2025, but Israel has kept striking the territory, killing civilians. Six civilians were killed after Israel hit the Nasser Hospital on Thursday.
In rare criticism, President Donald Trump's Board of Peace said this week that Israel – which tightly restricts entry into Gaza – had not done enough in anticipation of the cold weather and that it needed urgently to let in more supplies.
