Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip (AP) — Rain soaked Gaza’s tent camps and freezing temperatures chilled Palestinians inside them Thursday as winter storm Byron descended on the war-torn region, showing how a two-month ceasefire has failed to adequately address the spiraling humanitarian crisis there.
Families found their belongings and food items soaked inside their tents. Children’s sandaled feet disappeared beneath the opaque gray water that flooded the camp, knee-deep in some places. The dirt roads have turned into mud. Piles of dirt and garbage cascaded down like a waterfall.
“We are drowning. I have no clothes to wear and we don’t even have a mattress,” said Um Salman Abu Kinas, a displaced mother in the Khan Younis tent camp. She said that her family could not sleep the previous night because the tents were wet.
Aid groups say not enough shelter materials have arrived in Gaza during the ceasefire. Figures recently released by Israel’s military suggest it has not met a truce condition allowing 600 truckloads of aid a day into Gaza, although Israel disputes that finding.
“Cold, overcrowded, and unsanitary environments increase the risk of disease and infection,” the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said in X. “This suffering can be prevented with humanitarian assistance, including medical aid and proper shelter.”
Rain wreaks havoc
Sabreen Qudeh, who lives in the Khan Younis camp in a vacant lot known as Muwasi, said her family awoke to water seeping through the roof of their tent and leaking mattresses, soaking mattresses.
“My little girls were screaming,” she said.
Ahmad Abu Taha, who lives in the camp, said there were no tents to protect against floods. “The situation is very bad, we have elderly, displaced and sick people in this camp,” he said.
According to Hebrew media, more than a dozen people are trapped in their cars after flooding in south-central Israel. Israel’s rescue service, the MDA, said two teenage girls suffered minor injuries when a tree fell on the school.
The contrasting scenes with Gaza made clear how deeply the Israel-Hamas war had damaged the region, destroying most of the homes. Gaza’s population of about two million is almost entirely displaced, and most people live in vast tent camps spread along the coast, or in cesspits dug near the tents as toilets, among the shells of damaged buildings without adequate flood infrastructure.
At least three buildings in Gaza City damaged by Israeli bombardment during the war were partially destroyed by rain, the Palestinian Civil Defense said. It warned people not to stay inside damaged buildings, saying they could also fall from the top of them.
The agency also said that since the storm began, they have received more than 2,500 distress calls from people across Gaza whose tents and shelters have been damaged.
With buckets and mops, Palestinians scooped water from their tents.
Alia Bahatiti said her 8-year-old son “was wet all night and turned blue in the morning while sleeping in the water.” There was an inch of water on his tent floor “We can’t buy food, covers, towels or sheets to sleep on.”
While it was raining outside, Barka Bhar was taking care of her 3-month-old twins inside the tent. One of the twins has hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluid on the brain.
“Our tents are dilapidated … and they leak rainwater,” she said. “We must not lose our children this winter.”
Not enough support
Aid groups say Israel is not giving enough aid to Gaza to begin rebuilding the territory after years of war.
Under the deal, Israel agreed to abide by aid conditions from the previous January cease-fire, which specified it would allow 600 truckloads of aid to Gaza each day, it is doing so, but the Associated Press found that its own figures call that into question.
The January cease-fire also specified that Israel let in several caravans and tents. No caravans have yet entered Gaza during the ceasefire period, said Tania Hari, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli group that advocates for Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement.
The Israeli military agency that coordinates aid to Gaza, called COGAT, said on December 9 that it had “recently” sent 260,000 tents and tarpaulins and 1,500 trucks of blankets and warm clothing to Gaza.
The Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, put the figure lower. The UN and international NGOs have received 15,590 tents in Gaza since the cease-fire began, and other countries have sent 48,000. Many tents are not properly insulated, it says.
Amjad al-Shawa, the Gaza head of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that only a fraction of the 300,000 tents needed had entered Gaza. He alleged that Palestinians were in dire need of warm winter clothing and that Israel had blocked the entry of water pumps to help evacuate flooded shelters.
“All international parties must take responsibility for the situation in Gaza,” he said. “There is a real threat at all levels to the people of Gaza.”
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said in an interview with Al Jazeera that Gaza needs the rehabilitation of hospitals, the entry of heavy machinery to remove debris and the opening of the Rafah crossing – which Israel said last week it would open soon – has remained closed.
COGAT did not immediately respond to a request for comment on claims that Israel is not allowing water pumps or heavy machinery into Gaza.
Amnesty accuses Hamas of crimes against humanity
Amnesty International said in a report released Thursday that Hamas and other militant groups committed crimes against humanity in the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that started the war in Gaza.
In a 173-page report, Amnesty found widespread and systematic killing of civilians in the attack, as well as torture, hostage-taking and sexual abuse.
In the attack, Hamas fighters and other fighters attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 70,300 Palestinians, nearly half of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between rebels and civilians in its count. Last year Amnesty accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, which Israel denies.
Amnesty said it interviewed 70 people, including 17 survivors of the attack and family members of some of those killed. It also reviewed hundreds of open source videos and photos from the day of the attack.
Contrary to Hamas’ claims that it targeted the military, it said, the attack was deliberately “directed against the civilian population” and met international law standards for crimes against humanity.
It also said sexual abuse had taken place, although it could not conclude on their “area or scale”. It interviewed a man who testified he was raped by armed men at the Nova music festival, as well as a therapist who said he provided intensive therapy to three other rape survivors.
Hamas condemned the report, saying it “echoes false claims” by Israel.
Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign minister, scoffed at the report, posting on X that it took more than two years for Amnesty to address the attack “and even now its report falls far short of reflecting the full extent of Hamas’ horrific atrocities.”
