Gaza floods kill six as 70,000 tents fill with water

At least six people died in the downpours, among them a woman, her two children aged eight and six, and three other children from the same family. All were killed when a sand embankment collapsed onto their tents in Deir al-Balah. Tens of thousands of tents across the territory were flooded.

Wassem Mushtaha, Oxfam's Response Lead in Gaza, said the families had been sheltering among forcibly displaced people in the central Gaza Strip. He warned the death toll is expected to rise, and said severe flooding has displaced around 100,000 people. His verdict on conditions: abhorrent, with no safe place to go.

Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza relief committee, told The Independent he cried watching a woman who had lost loved ones in the floods. His own home in the Nuseirat Camp sits surrounded by sewage water, and his four children, aged between four and 15, wade through it to get around. He puts the current density at around 21,000 people per square kilometre, with more than 65 to 70 per cent of Gaza rendered off-limits by Israel.

Mai Elawawda, a communications officer for Medical Aid for Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, said clinics are bracing for a surge in respiratory infections, especially among children, plus infectious diseases and, she said, hypothermia. Patients are turning up in wet clothes they cannot change or dry. Dr Goher Rahbour, a British colorectal and general surgeon from Suffolk volunteering at Nasser Hospital with the group IDEALS, said the tent cities sit in basin-like dips, so any water pools there immediately — no drains, no electricity, no infrastructure. One woman he treated for appendicitis was also covered in scabies on her back, and hospital staff are turning up to work with coughs and colds before heading back to their own tents.

Israel's COGAT told The Independent the humanitarian situation in Gaza is the best it has been since the war began, citing food availability, living conditions and water and sanitation infrastructure. It said the entire population has access to tents or other shelter, and pointed to 91,000 tents and 8,200 trucks carrying tarpaulins, blankets and winter clothing, plus sewage vacuum trucks, since the ceasefire agreement was implemented last year. Experts say it is not enough: Dr Rahbour and colleagues put the immediate need at 70,000 tents, around 500,000 pieces of tarpaulin and 57,000 emergency shelter kits. With crossings tightly controlled by Israel, replacement materials and medical equipment are near impossible to move in time, and prices have skyrocketed.

Elawawda said the guilt of sleeping under a roof can be unbearable, and that many of the children arriving at her clinics were born in these tents. Her colleagues expect to see families out on the road within hours of the rain, with children who are completely cold. They will be sent back to the shelters. Since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023, 1.7 million people have been displaced.