Gaza floods: heavy rain swamps tents, leaving people without shelter

Heavy rain has flooded tens of thousands of tents in the Gaza Strip where displaced residents are living. People have no dry place to sleep and are suffering from the cold, while humanitarian organizations lack the resources to help everyone in need.

Maryam Odah, 34, who lives with her children in Deir al-Balah, told AFP: “We don’t know how to protect our children. The children asked me where we would sleep today, and I had no answer.” Khalid Najjar added that people fear for their children not only because of the flooded tents, but also because of the cold and the spread of disease.

Collapsed walls and roofs

A Hamas spokesman said the rain had also caused “dozens of cracked walls and roofs to collapse.” According to him, this led to a number of injuries, some of them serious, the BBC reports.

“It’s simply terrible and utterly hopeless,” an aid worker named Veitch in Deir al-Balah told the BBC. He expects many people to die: “Last year we saw what winter did: there were deaths from hypothermia. We can expect the same now if we don’t get help quickly.”

Shortages of money, fuel and water

“We provide help where we can, but on the way here people stopped us in the street asking for additional support,” he added.

The situation has been made worse by UNICEF’s funding shortfall, which has meant fewer tents, less cardboard and fewer plastic sheets. “We’ve had to be much more careful about where we direct our aid. Unfortunately, this morning’s severe flooding means that almost everyone needs help,” he said.

Israeli regulations restricting the import of heavy machinery into the Strip create further difficulties, he said. There is also a shortage of heating fuel.

Because of the fighting, around 90 percent of the Strip’s residents have been driven from their homes. Many have ended up in tent camps and have been forced to flee more than once. Access to water is limited, and sanitary conditions remain inadequate.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz