Losing more than home

The story of Farah

By the sea in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, the ground does not absorb rain. When winter storms hit, water rises quickly, pooling under tents, pushing through thin plastic sheets, soaking blankets, clothes, and bedding. For Farah and her family, this has happened three winters in a row. 

Farah is 45 years old. She lives in a coastal displacement camp in Khan Younis with ten other family members, her caregiver, four daughters, and extended relatives. Their original home, in eastern Khan Younis near Salah Al-Din Road, was completely destroyed during the war. When they returned briefly in March 2025, there was nothing left to recognize. “Everything was flattened,” her caregiver, Mona, said. “You could not even tell where the house used to be.”

They have been displaced twice. Each time, they carried what they could. Each time, they left more behind.

Living Through Winter Under Plastic and Wood

In Al-Mawasi, the family lives in a tent made of plastic tarps stretched over a simple wooden frame. During heavy rain, water seeps in from above and below. When the storms came last winter, Farah’s caregiver and daughters dug holes in the sand with their bare hands, trying to redirect the water away from the tent. Buckets were filled and emptied outside the tent. Blankets were hung outside to dry in the rain.

At one point, when everything inside the tent was soaked, Farah and the girls slept in a small shelter normally used to keep birds, the only dry space they could find.

“If you had driven a car through here, it would have floated,” her caregiver said, describing how high the water rose. Despite receiving plastic tarps as assistance, the family explains that without proper wooden supports, tarps alone cannot protect them from winter storms. They bought some wood for 150 shekels (40 euros), but strong winds damaged it soon after.

“There is not much we can do to prepare,” she said. “Even if we had ten tarps, without a proper structure, they would not protect us.”

Disability in Displacement

Farah has lived with hearing problems for years, but the war made them much worse. Loud sounds and sudden noises now frighten her. A doctor recently diagnosed her with a perforated eardrum and told the family she needs a hearing aid, along with continued dental treatment and a dental plate.

When the doctor mentioned the hearing aid, the family did not ask about the price. “We already knew we could not afford it,” her caregiver said. “We did not even start that conversation.”

Farah’s hearing loss increases her vulnerability in the camp. Using shared toilets is difficult for her. Navigating crowded spaces is even harder. She is more isolated, more dependent, and more exposed. Once, another displaced woman insulted her publicly “and called her ‘deaf’ in front of everyone. It hurt me so much to hear her being spoken to that way,” her caregiver said. Mona, her caregiver, continued “I confronted the woman immediately and told her not to speak to her that way.”

Before the war, the family received limited support from the Ramallah Ministry of Social Development. That assistance has since stopped. None of Farah’s brothers has a stable income. The one who used to help no longer can do so. The family has no steady source of income.

Cash Assistance and Dignity

Funded by the European Union, the Basic Needs Consortium (BNC), which comprises of Mercy Corps, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS), provides multipurpose cash assistance to vulnerable households across Gaza. To date, the Consortium has reached 6,936 vulnerable households with cash support, prioritizing families facing displacement, disability, and severe economic hardship.

For households caring for persons with disabilities, flexible cash assistance is particularly critical. It allows families to address individualized needs, including medical consultations, mobility-related costs, specialized care, and essential items that are often unaffordable under prolonged crisis conditions.

Farah began receiving multipurpose cash assistance in 2025 through the EU-funded Basic Needs Consortium, with support delivered by Mercy Corps. They received three transfers transfers: two of 1,000 shekels (270 euros), and a third of 1,250 shekels (340 euros).

Each transfer was used carefully.

With the first payment, Farah was taken to the dentist. Most of the money went toward her teeth, with a small amount saved in case she needed follow-up care. With the second transfer, the family bought her clothes and kebab. “She really wanted to taste kebab again,” her caregiver said. “It made her very happy.”

The third transfer had arrived just one day before Mercy Corps’ visit to Farah. “She was so happy when we told her,” her caregiver said. “We explained that we would use this to continue her medical treatment and other needs.”

Support helps the family cover both food and essential disability-related expenses for Farah. Adult diapers are expensive, and the family sets aside part of each transfer to ensure her needs are met. For her, this is essential.

The family is happy that Farah can now receive cash assistance in her name. “It gives her dignity,” her caregiver said. “It gives her some freedom to meet her own needs.”

Continuity of Support

The cash does not rebuild what was lost. But it allows choices, medical visits, clothing, food that brings joy, and reduces some of the daily pressure of survival.

Through the Basic Needs Consortium, households with additional protection or specialized needs can also be referred to appropriate services when available, ensuring that cases requiring further medical, protection, or psychosocial support are not left without follow-up.

For Farah and her family, the support means something practical and immediate: treatment that can continue, essential needs that can be covered, and decisions they can make for themselves.

“With this support, we can at least reduce her pain and help her,” her caregiver said.

With the continued support of the European Union, the Basic Needs Consortium will continue providing inclusive, flexible assistance that helps families facing displacement and disability navigate crisis with dignity.

The story of Jameela

Displacement does not affect everyone equally.

For families with people living with disabilities, every move takes more than belongings, it takes stability, routine, and dignity.

For Jameela, a mother of five in Gaza, displacement meant trying to protect three sons with intellectual disabilities while being forced to flee again and again. “Maybe forty or fifty times,” she says quietly. Each move pushed her children further from the sense of safety they need to function, learn, and cope.

“We kept evacuating, moving from one area to another, looking for safety. We were exhausted.”

When There Was Nowhere to Go

During the war, Jameela herself was injured by shrapnel. Her husband was later injured by a missile strike, leaving him with lasting disabilities in his arm and leg. At times, the family was separated simply because there was nowhere for all of them to stay. “We spent three days wandering with nowhere to stay,” Jameela recalls. “I stayed with my sister, and my husband slept at a friend’s house.”

Bathrooms without water. Crowded shelters. Streets filled with fear, shouting, and violence. None of it was suitable for children who require routine, calm, and assistance with daily tasks.

“My son cannot go to the bathroom alone,” she explains. “In some places, even using the toilet was a challenge.”

The constant stress caused her children to regress. One became aggressive. Others forgot skills she had patiently taught them. “Their condition makes them forget quickly,” she says. “And the stress makes everything worse.”

“Your tent is ready”

A protection specialist from Danish Refugee Council, working within the EU-funded Basic Needs Consortium, had been speaking regularly with Jameela, listening to her struggles, understanding what displacement meant for her family. The protection specialist called her and told her, “Your tent in Deir al-Balah is ready. You have a place to stay now.”

That moment changed everything for Jameela.

The tent, located in a DRC-supported site, offered something she did not have before: space, privacy, clean water, and a proper toilet. More importantly, it offered predictability. And for the first time in a long while, they were not being told to move again.

“Even though this is a tent,” Jameela says, “this is the place where we felt most comfortable.”

Protection is more than shelter

Here, her children began to calm down. Neighbors treated them with kindness. The environment allowed her to teach her son how to use the bathroom independently, something impossible during constant displacement.

“This place is much better,” she says. “People here love my children.”

Protection support didn’t stop at material assistance. Psychosocial sessions helped Jameela cope with trauma and exhaustion.

“If I am emotionally stable, I can help them better,” she explains.

Making a tent feel like home

Jameela refused to let displacement strip her family of dignity.

She began baking bread and pastries for the community, earning a small income. She bought a small oven so one of her sons could help operate it so he has something to do and can support with the expenses. She planted herbs outside the tent.

“One day I said, ‘Let’s plant something,’” she smiles. “It keeps us busy and makes the place feel like home.”

In a landscape defined by loss, these acts are not small. They are survival, agency, and care.

What support makes possible and what more could do

Jameela’s story shows what targeted protection support can achieve, even in a tent:

• Safety for families living with disabilities
• Psychosocial support that stabilizes caregivers and children
• Dignified shelter arrangements adapted to specific needs
• Pathways for small livelihoods and self-reliance

But it also shows the limits of reach.

“We try to follow up and support depending on the capacity we have,” says a DRC protection specialist. “We hope to reach more people like Jameela.”

Jameela’s home in Gaza City is gone. Completely destroyed. “So if I have to live in a tent either way,” she says, “then here is better.”

Better because she has someone to talk to.

Better because her children feel loved.