Climateupdated 1h ago3 min read
MapHeavy Rains Flood Gaza Displacement Camps, Sewage Water Worsens Palestinian Refugees’ Suffering
“as Israel continues to impose severe restrictions on aid supplies”
“Hamas blamed Israel for not allowing shelter and construction materials into Gaza.”
Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL · Cropped for layout
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Heavy rains flood Gaza displacement camps, submerging tents and destroying belongings across central Gaza. Sewage water worsening refugees' suffering as low-pressure system floods camps, damaging bedding and clothes.
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Gaza tents submerged
Heavy rains and the season’s first strong low-pressure system flooded displacement camps across the Gaza Strip, with sewage water worsening the suffering of Palestinian refugees in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. The UN News account said the pathways of the displacement camps in Deir al-Balah turned into wide pools of water that seeping into the tents flooded their contents, and it quoted a displaced person saying, "This water is sewage water, not just rainwater." UN News reported that the Palestinian Civil Defense announced it received more than 1,500 distress calls from displaced people whose tents and shelters were damaged across different parts of the Gaza Strip.
“This water is sewage water, not just rainwater.”
Nearly 400,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering in locations considered "highly vulnerable" to more flooding in Gaza City, and heavy rain and strong winds flooded 70,000 tents and brought down dozens of walls. Al Jazeera added that Gaza’s Government Media Office reported the storm caused damage estimated at $3m, while the Gaza Civil Defence said it received at least 1,500 emergency calls.
Calls for shelter and aid
UN News said UN warnings tied the flooding to the failure of sewage and rainwater drainage networks to operate regularly due to fuel shortages, spare parts, and damage to infrastructure during the war. UN News reported that OCHA said Gaza needed, up to the first of this month, about 121,000 tents, 561,000 plastic coverings, and 1.7 million mattresses in preparation for the rainy and cold season, while shelter partners’ available stock inside the Strip does not exceed about 2,800 tents. UNICEF special representative in Palestine, Jonathan Veitch, called for more funding to provide much-needed aid and said the majority of people are living in "terrible conditions."
Al Jazeera also reported that displaced families in Deir el-Balah had not received food aid since early Saturday, and it said the flooding came amid a humanitarian crisis as Israel continues to impose severe restrictions on aid supplies to the war-ravaged territory. UN News added that most residents of the Gaza Strip, numbering more than two million, live in displacement conditions after the war that began in October 2023, and it said large numbers of families still rely on tents and temporary shelters that do not provide adequate protection from rain and cold.
Winter risks and wider impact
The National described heavy rain hitting two fronts, with flash floods in northern Iraq killing two people while Gaza flooding inundated displacement camps and left tens of thousands soaked with few resources to cope. Torrential rainfall on Saturday evening triggered flash flooding across most of the city’s neighbourhoods in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, killing a five-year-old child and a bulldozer operator in his late 20s, and rainfall intensified sharply after 7pm with preliminary estimates putting the deluge at 80mm. In Gaza, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office reported at least 70,000 tents had been flooded in the past 12 hours, while the civil defence service said it had received 1,500 distress calls from displaced residents.
The Palestinian Center for Information warned that the first waves of the low-pressure system on Friday evening submerged a large number of tents and that the situation threatened hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in displacement camps and temporary housing centers. The Palestinian Center for Information also quoted meteorologist Laith al-‘Amali warning that the peak of the low begins late Friday night and lasts through Saturday, with expectations of widespread rainfall, sometimes heavy and with thunder, amid warnings of floods and rising water levels.