Gaza storm floods kill children as 150,000 tents sit blocked at the border

Heavy rain and wind battered Gaza's makeshift camps over the weekend. The Palestinian health ministry said a child drowned in flood water, and at least three children and their mother were killed when a sand dune fell on their tent. Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are left in waterlogged, damaged shelters, and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed, with sewage spewing into people's tents.

Raed Jamal, a displaced Palestinian, described nights spent bailing out his family's tent. 'All our clothes were soaked. My kids are all sick and I can't afford to buy them more clothes,' he said. 'These conditions are so difficult, the whole night I had to use pots to collect rainwater because it was falling on us.' He sent the Guardian videos of his tent shaking in the wind as rain poured through holes in its roof.

The shelters that could replace them aren't getting in. The UN says 150,000 tents are waiting outside Gaza for entry, covering the estimated 94% of Palestinians there who need help finding shelter. Israel claimed last week to have let 10,000 tents through. The charity Shelterbox said the tents it normally ships into emergencies have been stuck outside Gaza for almost two years, forcing it to improvise with tarpaulins and wooden pallets, materials it says are also being restricted.

Medical Aid for Palestinians warned of a health crisis in the flooded camps. 'Our medical teams expect to see more respiratory illnesses and other health complications linked to cold, damp and overcrowded conditions, and we fear more children could die from hypothermia, as happened last winter,' said Mai Elawawda, MAP's communications officer in Gaza. The UN puts 940,000 people in flood-risk areas, with storm-water pumping facilities out of action for lack of power. It said 26,000 households asked for help after the rains, and at least 3,900 are now without any shelter at all.

This is Gaza's second winter since a ceasefire was agreed more than a year ago, yet aid workers say conditions are no better than last year. They blame Israeli restrictions on 'dual-use items' and backlogs at crossings. The Israeli NGO Gisha says limits on goods are stricter than in previous ceasefires: authorities claim an average of 600 trucks a day enter Gaza, but count 12 pallets as one truck when a truck usually carries about 20, which Gisha says could amount to roughly a 40% cut in what gets through. Gisha also accuses Israel of a lack of transparency over what is allowed in.

The Council for Arab-British Understanding is pressing the UK government to push Israel to let supplies through and to restore licences for dozens of aid organisations, including Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council. 'A basic tent blocked by Israel is a manmade and political scarcity,' said Caabu's head of parliamentary affairs, Joseph Willits. Nour al-Batsh, mother of a seven-month-old, rented a partially destroyed apartment for $500 a month with donations after her tent collapsed. 'We are still in autumn, and winter has not even properly begun,' she said. 'Death inside that tent is certain.'