Winter storms have brought flooding and deadly landslides to thousands of people living in tents in Gaza, deepening a humanitarian crisis in the war's fourth winter, NPR's Anas Baba reported from Gaza City.
At the Al-Aqsa Hospital morgue in central Gaza, Baba found Ahmad Nabhan placing a wreath of basil beneath the head of his 5-year-old daughter, Maryam, wrapped in a white shroud. Beside her were the bodies of his pregnant wife, Tahrir, their 6-year-old son, Salah, and their 4-year-old niece, Habiba. Nabhan is the sole survivor of his immediate family. He happened to be away when their tent was buried as the earth gave way in the heavy rain, NPR reported.
Fifty-eight-year-old Um Al Abed Al-Sahar survived a collapse just yards away. She told Baba the downpour hit without warning. Within minutes, the sand cliff above them collapsed, burying her and her daughter to their waists and swallowing neighboring tents. She screamed for rescuers to dig out Nabhan's family. Displaced families knew the cliffside was unsafe, she said, but had no choice. "Out of sheer distress, people throw themselves under mountains, into the sea, anywhere they can pitch a shelter. Tell us where should we go?"
A storm on top of a compressed war
Baba reported that Israeli forces control more than 70% of Gaza's territory, with over 2 million people compressed into shrinking pockets of land. Gaza authorities say more than 20,000 tents were flooded in just two days. Gaza's civil defense warns that more than 2,000 buildings damaged by Israeli airstrikes are at risk of collapse, but displaced families sheltering inside them refuse to evacuate. Just weeks ago, a building sheltering around 100 people collapsed, killing 21, NPR reported.
The U.N. warns that Israeli restrictions on basic winter supplies — heavy tarps, tents and drainage equipment — have left the population "completely defenseless," Baba reported. Al-Sahar asked, at the very least, for tents "to live like human beings." Those are accounts from Gaza and from the U.N.; Israel's detailed response to the shelter-supply criticism was not included in the NPR report.
The same NPR piece also noted an overnight strike on one of Gaza's biggest hospitals, which Gaza's health ministry said killed at least six people, including a surgeon, and which Israel said targeted a Hamas commander. That strike is covered in separate reporting. The storm deaths and the fight over tents are a distinct emergency stacked on top of it.