Heavy rain flooded thousands of tents across Gaza on Saturday, forcing displaced families into the open as the first winter storm swept through the enclave. Gaza's civil defence agency received about 1,500 distress calls within 10 hours of the rain beginning, with water levels in several shelter sites rising 30-40 centimetres, according to Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal.
"A few shelter centres were completely flooded, and everyone inside them has now been forced out into the unknown," Basal told Al Jazeera. He said premature babies, the elderly and the sick faced the highest risk. "Those living in tents are at risk of death at any moment, and of illness at any moment," he said.
The storm also brought down structures already weakened by fighting. Civil Defence evacuated residents from a partially collapsed building in Nuseirat after strong winds and rain damaged it. In northern Gaza, a separate building wall collapsed, injuring two people according to the Wafa news agency.
Video from camps in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah showed families standing in ankle-deep water with soaked mattresses and blankets. More than 125,000 families sheltering in al-Mawasi, a coastal area in southern Gaza hosting over 900,000 displaced people, faced particular risk of having tents swept away by rising sea levels.
Gaza's emergency committee said more than one million displaced people face winter dangers and the territory urgently needs about 200,000 tents and heating supplies. Raed al-Dahshan, director of civil defence in Gaza governorate, told Al Jazeera his crews could do little once they reached flooded families. "Civil Defence does not have a single tarpaulin or a single tent," he said.
Aid groups attribute supply shortages to Israeli restrictions on shelter materials entering Gaza. Mohammed Salha, director of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera that only 180 to 200 trucks entered Gaza daily, far below the 600 agreed under the humanitarian protocol, with only about 40 carrying humanitarian aid. He said 50,000 tents had been waiting on the Egyptian side of the border.