Bad newsGaza's First Winter Storm Floods 70,000 Tents, Local Authorities Say
Gaza's government media office says about 70,000 shelters were flooded within 12 hours on 7 November. Civil defence took 1,500 distress calls, al-Shifa's emergency department closed for four hours, and officials say 200,000 tents are needed.
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The first winter storm of the season has flooded shelters across the Gaza Strip, and the people living in them have little left to protect them. Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Saturday 7 November that about 70,000 tents sheltering displaced Palestinians were flooded within 12 hours, Al Jazeera reports. The office put initial losses at about $3m and said dozens of walls had collapsed and people were injured. These are figures from the local authorities, and no independent count is available yet.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said it received about 1,500 distress calls in the first 10 hours of rain. Haaretz also reports more than 1,500 calls, and says rescuers were trying to reach a person trapped under a collapsed roof in Gaza City. Water in some shelter sites rose by 30 to 40 centimetres, according to civil defence. A building in Nuseirat partially collapsed, and a wall fell in northern Gaza, injuring two people, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Hospitals and cold
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that the hospital’s emergency department flooded and was out of service for about four hours. He warned of more stomach, chest and skin infections as sewage mixes with rainwater inside tents. He also expects deaths among newborns who need warmth, possibly dozens or hundreds. That is a projection by one doctor, not a count.
Gaza’s emergency committee says more than one million displaced people face the winter and that the territory needs about 200,000 tents plus heating supplies. Civil defence director Raed al-Dahshan said his crews have no tarpaulins or tents to hand out. In al-Mawasi, where more than 900,000 displaced people shelter, more than 125,000 families along the coast are at risk of having their tents swept into the sea, Al Jazeera’s reporter said.
Who is blamed
The media office holds Israel fully responsible, citing closed crossings and blocked entry of shelter and reconstruction materials. Al Jazeera adds that aid groups blame Israeli restrictions on shelter supplies. Neither source includes a response from Israeli authorities on Gaza’s shelter conditions. Haaretz says only that Israel issued flood warnings for coastal cities and the Judean Desert. Whether more tents can enter before the next storm depends on the crossings, and no source says when that might change.
