Heavy rain on Saturday flooded tens of thousands of tents housing displaced Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza, leaving thousands of families without shelter, Palestinian authorities said.
About 70,000 tents housing displaced Palestinians were flooded on the first day of rainfall, worsening conditions for families already struggling to survive in makeshift camps.
The statement also reported that dozens of weakened walls and damaged roofs collapsed under the heavy rain, causing injuries, some of them critical, in several parts of the territory.
Since early Saturday, hundreds of displaced families have been forced to flee flooded camps in Gaza City and across the central and northern parts of the Gaza Strip as rainwater inundated their temporary shelters.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that his teams had received more than 1,500 calls overnight from residents seeking urgent assistance after their tents were flooded. He said the agency was operating "without any equipment or capabilities."
"We have issued an urgent distress call to the international community and humanitarian organizations to intervene immediately to save hundreds of thousands of displaced people from the flooding of their tents," he said.
"We cannot face the consequences of this storm on our own."
Um Muhammad al-Hersh, 45, who lives with her family in a tent in western Gaza, told AFP: "We were not able to save the mattresses, and all the clothes were soaked. Our suffering is repeated every winter."
Maryam Odeh, 34, who lives with her children in Deir al-Balah, said: "We no longer know how to protect our children. My children ask me where we will sleep tonight, and I have no answer."
Khaled al-Najjar, 41, said his family feared not only flooding but also the cold and the spread of disease.
"We fear for our children not only from the flooding of the tents, but also from the cold and the widespread diseases," he said.
A coalition of Palestinian civil society organizations warned in a statement of "the catastrophe that has come to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents," citing the risk of disease outbreaks.
The coalition, which includes dozens of local institutions and organizations, called for "pressure on Israel to allow the entry of humanitarian aid without restrictions."
A fragile cease-fire took effect Oct. 10, 2025, after two years of genocide that began with Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 incursion into southern Israel.
Despite the ceasefire agreement, reached through Egyptian, Qatari and U.S. mediation, the Israeli military has continued carrying out airstrikes and ground operations almost daily.
Mustafa Qazzaat, a member of the Gaza City Council and an official with the Gaza Strip's emergency committee, said Israel had not allowed prefabricated homes into the territory to shelter displaced Palestinians since the truce took effect. He said only limited numbers of tents had been permitted to enter.
Qazzaat told AFP on Saturday that Gaza "needs 200,000 prefabricated homes urgently, in addition to the entry of heavy machinery to remove the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings, open main roads, and urgently provide electricity and heating."
