Rains drenched Gaza’s tent camps and dropping temperatures chilled Palestinians huddling inside them Thursday as winter storm Byron descended on the war-battered territory, showing how two months of a ceasefire have failed to sufficiently address the spiraling humanitarian crisis there.
Families found their possessions and food supplies soaked inside their tents. Children’s sandaled feet disappeared under opaque brown water that flooded the camps, running knee deep in some places. Dirt roads turned to mud. Piles of garbage and sewage cascaded like waterfalls, reported The Associated Press.
“We have been drowned. I don’t have clothes to wear and we have no mattresses left,” said Um Salman Abu Qenas, a displaced mother in a Khan Younis tent camp. She said that her family couldn't sleep the night before, because of the water in the tent.
Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are getting into Gaza during the truce. Figures recently released by Israel's military suggest it hasn't met the ceasefire stipulation of allowing 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day, though Israel disputes that finding.
“Cold, overcrowded, and unsanitary environments heighten the risk of illness and infection,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on X. “This suffering could be prevented by unhindered humanitarian aid, including medical support and proper shelter."
Rains wreak havoc
Sabreen Qudeeh, also in the Khan Younis camp, in a squalid area known as Muwasi, said that her family woke up to rain leaking from their tent's ceiling and water from the street soaking their mattresses.
“My little daughters were screaming,” she said.
Ahmad Abu Taha, also living in the camp, said there wasn't a tent that escaped the flooding. “Conditions are very bad, we have old people, displaced, and sick people inside this camp,” he said.
Floods in south-central Israel trapped more than a dozen people in their cars, according to Hebrew media. Israel's rescue services, MDA, said that two young girls were slightly injured when a tree fell on their school.
The contrasting scenes with Gaza made clear how profoundly the Israel-Hamas war had damaged the territory, destroying the majority of homes. Gaza’s population of around 2 million is almost entirely displaced, and most people live in vast tent camps stretching along the coast, or set up among the shells of damaged buildings without adequate flooding infrastructure and with cesspits dug near tents as toilets.
At least three buildings in Gaza City already damaged by Israeli bombardment during the war partially collapsed under the rain, Palestinian Civil Defense said. It warned people not to stay inside damaged buildings, saying they too could fall down on 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 were damaged.
With buckets and mops, Palestinians laboriously scooped water out of their tents.
Aliaa Bahtiti said her 8-year-old son "was soaked overnight, and in the morning he had turned blue, sleeping on water.” Her tent floor had an inch of water on it “We cannot buy food, covers, towels, or sheets to sleep on.”
Baraka Bhar was caring for her 3-month-old twins inside her tent as the rain poured outside. One of the twins has hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluids in the brain.
“Our tents are worn out ... and they leak rain water,” she said. “We should not lose our children this winter.”
Not enough aid
Aid groups say that Israel isn't allowing enough aid into Gaza to begin rebuilding the territory after years of war.
Under the agreement, Israel agreed to comply with aid stipulations from an earlier January truce, which specified that it allow 600 trucks of aid each day into Gaza, It maintains it's doing so, but The Associated Press found that some of its own figures call that into question.
The January truce also specified that Israel let in a number of caravans and tents. No caravans have yet entered Gaza during the ceasefire, said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli group advocating for Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement.
The Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, called COGAT, said on Dec. 9 it had “lately" let 260,000 tents and tarpaulins into Gaza and more than 1,500 trucks of blankets and warm clothing.
Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, sets the number lower. It says the UN and international nongovernmental organizations have gotten 15,590 tents into Gaza since the truce began, and other countries have sent about 48,000. Many of the tents aren't properly insulated, it says.
Amjad al-Shawa, Gaza chief of the Palestinian NGO Network, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that only a fraction of the 300,000 tents needed had entered Gaza. He said that Palestinians were in dire need of warmer winter clothes and accused Israel of blocking the entry of water pumps to help clear flooded shelters.
"All international sides should take the responsibility regarding conditions in Gaza,” he said. “There is real danger for people in Gaza at all levels.”
Khaled Mashaal, a Hamas leader, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that Gaza needs the rehabilitation of hospitals, the entry of heavy machinery to remove rubble, and the opening of the Rafah crossing — which remains closed after Israel said last week it would shortly open.
COGAT didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the claims that Israel wasn’t 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 Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
In the 173-page report, Amnesty pointed to what it found to be 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 militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 others hostage. Israel's campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 70,300 Palestinians, roughly half of them women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count. Last year, Amnesty accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel denied.
Amnesty said it conducted interviews with 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 it was targeting the military, it said, the attack was intentionally “directed against a civilian population” and met international law standards for crimes against humanity.
It said sexual assaults were also committed, though it said it could not reach a conclusion on their “scope or scale.” It interviewed one man who testified he was raped by armed men at the Nova music festival, as well as a therapist who said she provided intensive treatment to three other survivors of rape.
Hamas condemned the report, saying it “echoed false claims” by Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister spokesperson Oren Marmorstein derided the report in a posting on X, saying it took more than two years for Amnesty to address the attack “and even now its report falls far short of reflecting the full scope of Hamas’s horrific atrocities.”
