Reported by Al Jazeera
The enclave’s civil defence says it received about 1,500 distress calls in 10 hours as a storm swept through displacement camps.
Heavy rain has flooded thousands of tents across the Gaza Strip, forcing displaced Palestinian families out into the cold as the first winter storm of the season swept through the besieged territory.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said its crews received about 1,500 distress calls in just 10 hours after the rain began early Saturday, with water levels in several shelter sites rising by 30-40 cm (12-16in).
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“What we feared has actually happened,” Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Al Jazeera. “A few shelter centres were completely flooded, and everyone inside them has now been forced out into the unknown.”
Basal said premature babies, the elderly and the sick were most at risk. “Those living in tents are at risk of death at any moment, and of illness at any moment,” he said.
The storm also brought down buildings damaged in Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave that erupted in October 2023.
The Civil Defence said rescuers had evacuated residents of a building in the central Nuseirat area that partially collapsed in the strong winds and rain. In northern Gaza, the wall of a separate building collapsed due to the heavy rainfall, injuring two people, according to the Wafa news agency.
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 pools of mud and sewage.
“Even houses can’t hold up against this rain, so how can open plastic sheeting?” said Al Jazeera’s Nour Khaled, reporting from a camp in Gaza City. She said more than 28,000 widows were among those facing the winter alone with their children.
In al-Mawasi, the coastal area where more than 900,000 displaced people are sheltering in southern Gaza, rain had been falling since 10pm (20:00 GMT) on Friday, Al Jazeera’s Rami Abu Taima reported from Khan Younis.
“People woke up to find hundreds, even thousands, of tents flooded across the Gaza Strip,” he said. He added that more…