The heavy rains accompanying the first depression to hit the Gaza Strip at the beginning of winter turned shelter camps into vast areas of puddles and mud, causing the submergence of at least seventy thousand tents housing hundreds of thousands of displaced families, according to what the government media office in the Gaza Strip announced today, Saturday (November 7, 2026).
This rainstorm, which did not last for more than twelve hours at the beginning, revealed the extreme fragility of the temporary shelter structure to which the majority of Gazans took refuge after their homes were destroyed over two years of brutal war, leaving initial material losses estimated at about three million dollars and injuries of varying severity among civilians, without any deaths recorded.
Data from local authorities in the Gaza Strip reported that the rapid flow of rainwater and torrents of mud stormed random shelters in Gaza City and the central and northern governorates, where the water swept away thin tents and drowned bedding, clothes, and simple life necessities.
The damage was not limited to the tents of the displaced only, but extended to include cracks and partial collapses in dozens of walls and abandoned homes that were weakened by the continuous bombing operations over the past months, which led to rubble falling on the heads of passers-by and surrounding residents, causing serious injuries among citizens that required their transfer to the remaining medical points in the Strip amid extremely complex health conditions.
Collapse of the field system and cries for help in the open
With rainwater flowing into the tents of the displaced since the early hours of dawn, the Palestinian Civil Defense teams found themselves facing a disaster that far exceeded their capacity.
The General Directorate of Civil Defense confirmed that it received more than fifteen hundred urgent distress calls during just one night from citizens who were surrounded by water and whose tent covers were blown away, noting that field crews are working with almost completely non-existent capabilities, after the war destroyed most of the heavy equipment, bulldozers for removing rubble, and mechanisms for draining and suctioning rainwater and sewage.
Emergency officials stressed that the fuel scarcity crisis further restricts the movement of remaining vehicles, making evacuating stranded families or securing water drainage corridors an almost impossible task on its own without direct international support.
In the heart of the camps, feelings of helplessness and despair prevail among families who no longer own more than a few meters of worn-out plastic sheets.
Residents document harsh scenes of mothers and fathers trying to lift their children onto bundles of wet blankets to protect them from the cold water, or resorting to the surrounding sand to build small dirt dams to prevent the torrents from flowing inland, to little avail.
Residents' field testimonies indicate that the loss of blankets and clothes leaves hundreds of thousands, especially children and the elderly, vulnerable to severe frostbites, coinciding with escalating medical warnings from Palestinian civil society organizations about an imminent explosion of epidemics and chest and skin diseases resulting from rainwater mixing with wastewater and stagnant waste near dense population centers.
Reconstruction restrictions and the repercussions of the fragile truce
On the field and political levels, the authorities in the Gaza Strip held Israel directly responsible for the current humanitarian catastrophe, stressing that the closure of the tight crossings and the ban on the entry of necessary shelter supplies, such as sturdy tents, insulating sheets, and prefabricated houses, constitute the main factor in doubling the extent of the damage.
The Central Emergency Committee in the Gaza Strip's municipalities called for urgent international pressure to introduce about two hundred thousand prefabricated homes to shelter the displaced in a dignified manner, in addition to introducing the heavy engineering machinery necessary to open streets blocked by rubble and provide immediate solutions for interrupted heating and electrical power.
