Tent camps flooded as winter storm exposes Gaza’s fragile ceasefire

Storm Byron has pummelled Gaza’s makeshift tent camps, drenching tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians and highlighting how two months of ceasefire have failed to address the worsening humanitarian crisis.

Families discovered their possessions and food supplies soaked inside tents. Children waded through opaque brown floodwater that submerged sandalled feet and ran knee-deep in some areas. Dirt roads transformed into mud while rubbish and sewage flowed like waterfalls.

“We have been drowned. I don’t have clothes to wear and we have no mattresses left,” said Um Salman Abu Qenas, a displaced mother in a Khan Younis tent camp. She said that her family could not sleep the night before because of the water in the tent.

Aid organisations report insufficient shelter materials being allowed to enter Gaza during the truce, compounding the war misery as a natural disaster hits. Recent figures from Israel’s military indicate it has not met the ceasefire requirement of allowing 600 aid trucks daily into Gaza.

“Cold, overcrowded, and unsanitary environments heighten the risk of illness and infection,” the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on X. “This suffering could be prevented by unhindered humanitarian aid, including medical support and proper shelter.”

Sabreen Qudeeh, also in the Khan Younis camp in the squalid al-Mawasi area, said her family awoke to rain leaking through their tent ceiling while water from the street soaked their mattresses.

“My little daughters were screaming,” she said.

Ahmad Abu Taha, another camp resident, reported that not a single tent escaped flooding. “Conditions are very bad, we have old people, displaced, and sick people inside this camp,” he said.

The Palestinian Civil Defence reported that at least three previously damaged buildings in Gaza City partially collapsed due to the rain. They warned people against staying in damaged structures that could collapse further.

The agency has received more than 2,500 distress calls from Palestinians with damaged tents and shelters since the storm began.

Palestinians laboriously bailed water from their tents using buckets and mops.

Aliaa Bahtiti said her eight-year-old son “was soaked overnight, and in the morning he had turned blue, sleeping on water”. An inch of water covered her tent floor. “We cannot buy food, covers, towels, or sheets to sleep on.”

Baraka Bhar tended to her three-month-old twins inside her tent as rain poured outside. One twin suffers from hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain.

“Our tents are worn out … and they leak rainwater,” she said. “We should not lose our children this winter.”