In brief
Heavy rain across Gaza surged water levels in thousands of tents up to 40 cm, prompting emergency calls and forcing families into the cold. Civil defence and aid groups warn that Israeli restrictions hamper essential aid deliveries, while the emergency committee calls for 200,000 tents and heating supplies to protect over a million displaced residents.
The first winter storm of the season raged through Gaza, turning rubber‑sheltered families into a desperate march in the cold as heavy rains flooded tents and swollen water rose up to 40 cm in some sites.
Within ten hours of the rain’s arrival, Gaza’s civil‑defence agency logged about 1,500 distress calls, a clear indicator of how quickly the makeshift shelters were overwhelmed and leaving vulnerable populations, including premature babies, the elderly and the sick, exposed to both the chill and the risk of illness.
The tempest also damaged structures that had survived the October 2023 bombardment; a building in central Nuseirat partially collapsed under wind and rain, while in neighboring areas a wall gave way, injuring two people, reports the Wafa news agency.
Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Basal, a civil‑defence spokesperson, told reporters that “what we feared has actually happened,” citing the “completely flooded” shelters that forced residents into an uncertain outdoors. He warned that “those living in tents are at risk of death at any moment, and of illness at any moment.”
In Gaza City, Khan Younis and Deir el‑Balah, families were seen wading through ankle‑deep water, with mattresses and blankets soaked, children barefoot in mud‑laden pools. Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Khaled highlighted the inadequacy of plastic sheeting in the face of rising waters, noting “even houses can’t hold up against this rain, so how can open plastic sheeting?” as more than 28,000 widows struggled alone with their children.
Rami Abu Taima, reporting from Khan Younis, added that “people woke up to find hundreds, even thousands, of tents flooded across the Gaza Strip.” He also pointed out that over 125,000 families live along the coast and face the danger of tents being swept away by the sea.
The Gaza emergency committee, responding to the storm, stressed that the territory’s more than one million displaced people confront seasonal hazards, and that urgent needs include 200,000 new tents and adequate heating supplies to mitigate winter exposure.
Aid groups, operating under tight Israeli restrictions, warn that deliveries of essential supplies—water, food, medical kits—are hampered, compounding the crisis. While the civil‑defence depends on ad‑hoc rescue, it has “little to do” once it reaches families already in flooded tents, according to director Raed al‑Dahshan, illustrating the limits of the current response infrastructure against sudden climate shocks.
As the water recedes, the story highlights how weather extreme events in conflict zones magnify humanitarian fragility, underlining the pressing need for resilient shelter solutions and unimpeded supply lines that can adapt to weather‑related hazards.
