'Everything is soaked': Winter rains in Gaza bring new misery for Palestinians

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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Children and families in Gaza scooped muddy water from their tents on Tuesday, trying to protect the few belongings that remain after two years of war.

Winter's heavy rains have left displaced Palestinians splashing in water that reaches their ankles, and blaming both Israel and Hamas for the misery that remains despite a ceasefire.

“All tents were destroyed,” said Assmaa Fayad in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, whose shelter was damaged in Tuesday’s latest downpour. “Where is Hamas? Where are the people to see this rain and how our children are drowning?"

A Hamas spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, lashed out in a message on Telegram: “All the world’s efforts to alleviate the disaster have failed because of the Israeli siege.”

Aid organizations worry that the rainy winter months will make the stark situation worse, with ongoing shortages of humanitarian supplies. They are scrambling to mitigate the flooding and restore infrastructure devastated by the fighting.

Nearly all of Gaza’s over 2 million people were forced from their homes during the war. Most have been living in tents or shelters, some of them built over destroyed homes, with no proper sewage facilities. For toilets, they depend on cesspits dug near tents that overflow in heavy rainfall.

Reham al-Hilu was among those assessing the damage in Deir al-Balah, one of the areas hardest hit by the rains. Her wood and metal shelter collapsed overnight, and she said her head was injured.

“Rainwater flooded the mattresses," she said. "As you can see, everything is soaked — the clothes, everything — and my children are all soaked.”

The United Nations humanitarian office last week said the downpours have damaged at least 13,000 tents like al-Hilu's, and “destroyed what little shelter and belongings thousands of Palestinians in Gaza had left.”

The office said aid organizations had begun preparing for winter in October, when the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, transporting materials like winterized tents into Gaza. Aid groups were able to distribute over 3,600 tents, 129,000 tarpaulins and 87,000 blankets earlier this month, the U.N. office said.

But the office said efforts have been hampered by the slow entry of aid. It said deliveries into the territory continue to be "severely constrained by Israeli authorities’ restrictions on the entry of shelter supplies.”

“Lifesaving humanitarian aid must enter Gaza without obstruction and at scale,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said on Tuesday.

The Israeli defense body responsible for the entry of aid, COGAT, said it worked on “a dedicated response to the winter.”

“The effort is ongoing - additional winter-related requests by international organizations have already been approved, and entry will take place in the coming days,” the agency wrote Tuesday on X.

Roadways in Deir al-Balah turned into shallow rivers of murky water. One man waded across carrying a young daughter in each arm.

Some families knelt on the ground, trying to soak up the water with pieces of cloth.

While daily fighting has stopped in Gaza, Israel continues to strike parts of the territory in response to what it says are violations by Hamas. Both sides have accused each other of violating ceasefire conditions.

And many displaced Palestinians remain crowded into the rough half of Gaza's territory that Israeli forces don’t control.

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Janetsky reported from Jerusalem.

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Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war