Torrential rain brings more death and destruction to war-battered Gaza

TEL AVIV — Torrential rain has turned the Gaza Strip’s tent cities into swamps, killed at least a dozen people and washed away hopes that a ceasefire that has lasted two months would substantially improve the quality of life for millions of displaced people.

“No one brought us anything,” Nael Salah told NBC News on Thursday, standing ankle-deep in a large puddle in front of several flooded tents at a camp in northern Gaza’s Zeitoun camp. “We were flooded, yet we didn’t receive a single mattress, not one blanket, nothing at all.”

It’s a familiar scene in the war-battered enclave where murky brown floodwaters have swept away tents and drenched people’s possessions and food, and temperatures have plunged, since winter storm Byron swept in this week, adding to the already desperate humanitarian crisis.

Fourteen people have died in the past 24 hours, according to a statement from the Ministry of Interior and National Security in Gaza, which remains partially ruled by Hamas.

At least three children have died from “extreme cold,” Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense, said Friday.

“We don’t have enough materials and supplies to address people’s needs,” a United Nations official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Friday. Shelter items specifically “remain one of the lowest sourced,” they added.

Their comments came a day after the United Nations International Organization for Migration said in a statement that materials to help reinforce shelters, such as timber and plywood, as well as sandbags and water pumps to help with flooding, had been delayed from entering Gaza due to ongoing access restrictions.

Warning that “nearly 795,000 displaced people are at heightened risk of potentially dangerous flooding in low-lying, rubble-filled areas where families are living in unsafe shelters,” the IOM said that supplies already dispatched to Gaza, including waterproof tents, thermal blankets and tarpaulins, had not withstood the downpour.

Insufficient drainage and waste management also heightened the risk of disease outbreak, the U.N. agency added.

Israel heavily restricts any import materials it considers “dual use” — covering building supplies and machinery, as well as agricultural equipment and medicine. It says these goods could be repurposed for military use by Hamas or used by the group to garner support.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement that Israel had blocked about 300,000 “tents, mobile homes, and caravans” from entering the enclave since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire came into effect on Oct. 10.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli agency in charge of providing assistance to Palestinians under occupation, said in a statement Friday that it coordinated with the U.N. and other aid agencies to allow “hundreds of trucks” carrying essential supplies to enter Gaza on a daily basis.

“Israel is fully committed to its obligation to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid trucks in accordance with the agreement,” it said.

While the heavy rain appears to have stopped and the forecast for this weekend and most of next week suggests sunshine and warmer temperatures, Basal, the Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson, said dozens of buildings collapsed due to the weather and dozens more are at risk.

Civil defense officials said they are fielding hundreds of emergency calls from desperate people seeking assistance.

Others have relied on the kindness of strangers: In the Zeitoun camp, Salah said that young men woke up at midnight and roused their neighbors as floodwaters rose.

“They were about to drown, and the children could have died,” Salah said. “By God, this is not a life.”