Heavy rains and cold winds that lashed Gaza overnight have added to the misery of displaced Palestinian families, forced from their homes and now huddled in flimsy, flooded tents.
At a tent camp in Rafah, located on sandy terrain strewn with rubbish, people were seen trying to recover from a horrible night, carrying buckets of sand to cover puddles in or around from their tents and hanging up soggy clothes.
Some families have real tents, but others make do with tarpaulins or thin, transparent plastic, designed to protect belongings and not to provide shelter for people. Many tents did not have groundsheets, so people spent the night huddled on the wet sand.
‘Nobody cares’
Aziza al Shabrawi tried in vain to drain the rainwater from the family tent, pointing the finger at her two children living in very precarious conditions.
“My son is sick from the freezing cold and my daughter is barefoot. It’s like we are beggars,” the 38-year-old said. “No one cares and no one helps.”
Yasmin Mhani said she woke up in the night to find her seven-month-old child soaked. Her family of five shares a single blanket after their home was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike and they lost one of the children, along with all their belongings.
“Our house was destroyed, our child was martyred and I still face all of this. This is the fifth place we have had to move, fleeing from one place to another, with nothing but a T-shirt on us,” she said as she hung up wet clothes outside from his tent.
Videos shared on social media showed people walking through flooded streets as they carried family members killed in Israeli bombings and wrapped in white shrouds. Heavy rains and strong winds made it more difficult to bury the dead.
A Palestinian man holds the body of a young Palestinian woman killed by an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia despite heavy rains. #Gazagenocide #Gaza pic.twitter.com/L4xrAJbAQ5
— Wafa News Agency – English (@WAFANewsEnglish) December 13, 2023
Tel Aviv Tribune correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, said the rainfall had triggered new challenges for a majority of Palestinians.
“It is particularly worrying for those who evacuated their homes and followed orders from the Israeli occupying forces to flee south,” he said.
“People here are facing a dramatic and deteriorating situation, as they have moved from their concrete homes to camps with tents that do not meet all kinds of basic needs. »
Palestinians from Gaza have fled south by the tens of thousands by any means necessary – car, truck, horse-drawn cart or on foot – transforming Rafah into a sea of tents and makeshift shelters made of wood and clay. plastic sheeting.
The United Nations says people have fled south to face “catastrophic circumstances”, with crowds waiting for hours around distribution centers for meager supplies of water, food and medical aid, while that diseases are rampant in poverty, aggravated by rain and floods.
Rafah, next to the border with Egypt, is the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, where people are arriving in increasing numbers to seek refuge from the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, which now rages to the north and to the south.
Hundreds of tents have been erected in Rafah with wooden and plastic sheeting.
“We spent five days outside. And now the rain has flooded the tents,” said another displaced resident, Bilal al-Qassas.
“Where do we migrate to? Our dignity has disappeared. Where do women relieve themselves? There are no toilets,” the 41-year-old said.
“We began to aspire to martyrdom. We don’t want to eat or drink.
The UN humanitarian agency says people are “desperately in need of food, water, shelter, health and protection”.
“Without enough latrines, open defecation is widespread, increasing fears of further spread of disease, particularly during rains and resulting floods,” the UN OCHA said in a statement. .
Pushed into Egypt?
Inas, 38, a mother of five, said she and her family had been forced to flee four times since the war began – first from the At-Twam area in the north of the city from Gaza, to the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, then to Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, then to the town of Khan Younis, and now to Rafah.
The family previously owned a five-story house and a supermarket, which were completely destroyed, she said.
“I hope that the war will end and that the Israeli occupation forces will not invade Rafah on the ground. I am terrified by the possibility of displacement to Egypt,” she said, expressing a common fear among Palestinians in Gaza.
“It’s our worst nightmare. Will they expand the ground war to Rafah? If this happens, where should we go? To the sea or to Sinai? she said, referring to Egypt’s vast desert region just south of Gaza and Israel.
“We urge the world to stop Israel. We don’t want to leave Gaza,” she said.
Israel denies it intends to push Palestinians toward the Sinai, while Egypt has said it does not want a mass arrival of people from Gaza.
However, the border fence between Gaza and Egypt has been breached in the past, fueling fears of uncontrolled displacement this time around.
Israeli bombardments on Gaza have killed more than 18,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities, and thousands more may be buried under the rubble.
Israel says 1,147 people were killed after Hamas fighters breached the border fence on October 7 and captured 240 captives, nearly half of whom were freed.