World

Heavy Rain Floods Thousands of Tents, Displacing Gaza Families

By Al Jazeera Staff

The Gaza Strip’s civil defence reported about 1,500 distress calls in a 10‑hour span as a storm hit displacement camps, flooding thousands of tents and forcing families into the cold. Water levels in several shelters rose 30‑40 cm (12‑16 in). Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Al Jazeera that some shelter centres were completely flooded, leaving occupants outside. He warned that premature babies, the elderly and the sick were most at risk and that those living in tents faced imminent danger of death or illness.

The storm also caused damage to buildings already weakened by Israel’s war that began in October 2023. Rescuers evacuated residents from a partially collapsed building in central Nuseirat, and a separate building’s wall collapsed in northern Gaza, injuring two people, according to Wafa news agency.

Video footage from camps in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Deir el‑Balah showed families wading through ankle‑deep water, mattresses and blankets soaked, and children standing barefoot in mud and sewage. Al Jazeera’s Nour Khaled, reporting from a Gaza City camp, noted that even houses could not withstand the rain, let alone open plastic sheeting. She said more than 28,000 widows were among those facing winter alone with their children.

In al‑Mawasi, a coastal area sheltering over 900,000 displaced people in southern Gaza, rain had been falling since 10 pm (20:00 GMT) on Friday. Rami Abu Taima of Al Jazeera, reporting from Khan Younis, said people woke to find hundreds or thousands of tents flooded across the Strip and that more than 125,000 families along the coast risk having their tents swept away by the sea.

Gaza’s emergency committee said more than one million displaced people face winter dangers and that the territory urgently needs about 200,000 tents and heating supplies. Raed al‑Dahshan, director of civil defence in the Gaza governorate, told Al Jazeera that crews could do little once they reached flooded families. He said civil defence has no tarpaulins or tents and that its focus is only on saving lives.

Aid groups blame Israeli restrictions on the entry of shelter materials. Mohammed Salha, director of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera that only 180 to 200 trucks entered Gaza daily, far below the 600 agreed under the humanitarian protocol of the ceasefire, and that only about 40 carried humanitarian aid. He said 50,000 tents had been waiting on the Egyptian side of the border and that responses must come before disasters occur. He described international pressure on Israel to allow more supplies as “timid.”