Overnight rain turned Gaza’s tent cities into flooded camps. Local authorities said on Saturday that about 70,000 shelters for displaced households had taken on water within half a day, with early material damage estimated near three million dollars. Weakened walls gave way in several places and people were injured.
Rescue switchboards logged roughly 1,500 calls in ten hours. Water stood knee-high in places — around 30 to 40 centimetres — inside some compounds. Mahmoud Basal of the territory’s civil defence told Al Jazeera that the scenario everyone dreaded had arrived: whole centres underwater and residents pushed outdoors with nowhere dry to go.
Across the Strip, cameras caught parents hauling soaked bedding, toddlers standing in filthy puddles and neighbours scooping water with kitchen pans. Camps along the southern shoreline face a double risk when high tide meets rain. Medics fear a spike in lung, stomach and skin illness once floodwater mixes with sewage under canvas.
Even major clinics struggled. The emergency wing at al-Shifa stayed closed for hours after water poured in, according to its director. Rescue teams say they have no spare covers or replacement tents left to distribute. Aid workers blame tight Israeli controls on machinery and shelter goods; Unicef’s Jonathan Veitch told the BBC the need is almost universal and plastic sheeting is already scarce.
Over a million people displaced by the war now stare at winter with little more than patched nylon. Planners say hundreds of thousands of solid shelters and heaters are required; almost none of that stockpile has arrived.
Many tents have been repaired for years. Ceasefire rules spoke of swapping them for caravans, yet those shipments remain largely blocked at the border.
