GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: A barefoot Niven Abu Zreina swept an incessant stream of water away from her tent, as the season’s first big rain hit her makeshift displacement camp in Gaza City.
“I’ve been trying since morning to sweep away the rainwater that flooded our tent,” the Palestinian told AFP, her wet hijab sticking to her face.
“The scene speaks for itself. Rainwater soaked our clothes and mattress,” she said, while next to her a relative kept sweeping away the rain, also barefoot.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense agency, warned on Friday that the water had overwhelmed thousands of tents erected to cope with the mass displacement caused by the war.
“Since dawn today, we have received hundreds of appeals from displaced citizens whose homes and tents have been flooded by the rain,” Bassal said, adding that there were not enough tents to begin with.
- ‘What am I supposed to do?’ -
Located between the Sinai and the Negev desert on one side, and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, the tiny Gaza Strip receives almost all of its precipitation via strong rain in the late autumn and winter.
But with strict Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and humanitarian aid, displaced Gazans have erected tents and makeshift shelters that are inadequate for downpours.
Last month’s truce between Hamas and Israel has eased part of the restrictions, but with about 92 percent of residential buildings damaged or destroyed during the war according to the UN, needs vastly supersede what little can enter on trucks.
A humanitarian source told AFP that restrictions on many materials required for building shelters, such as certain types of tent poles, were still not being allowed into Gaza.
Elsewhere in the camp bordering the Mediterranean Sea, a man used a broom handle to dislodge water accumulating in the center of a tarp he had set up as an awning for his tent.
In the camps’ low-lying areas, water pooled and accumulated before it could stream away toward the sea, leaving some children wading ankle deep in water.
Enaam Al-Batrikhi, an activist at the displacement camp, said she felt powerless when women came to her for help.
“How could I possibly help them?” she asked, adding that her own tent was flooded.
Nura Abu el-Kass, another displaced woman from the camp, said she found her mattress, blankets and clothes all soaked.
“My son sent me this tent, but it doesn’t protect us (from rainwater). What am I supposed to do?“
- ‘Not safe to live’ -
In the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Mohammed Shabat and his wife and five children were also struggling because of the weather, as cold drafts have been seeping through their tent’s openings.
“We live in a cemetery, and I have a baby. This tent does not protect us from the cold or the rain,” said Shabat, sitting on the sand between graves.
“Soon winter will come, and it will be very difficult,” he added.
Sitting by a stove built out of stacked concrete blocks, Shabat’s wife Alaa was preoccupied with the coming cold.
“A tent is not a safe place to live with young children. The cold wind penetrates the tent in the evening and the temperature is very low.”
The temperature in Gaza falls to between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius (59 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit) at night, but any dip in temperature brings added suffering to Gazans already struggling with inadequate shelters and lack of proper nutrition.
