Hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans face flooding of their tents and shelters by heavy rains, and materials for shelters and sandbags are not being allowed to enter the enclave, the UN International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Friday.
Torrential rain swept across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, flooding tents sheltering families displaced by two years of war, and leading to the death of a baby girl due to exposure, local health officials said.
Twelve people are dead or missing as a result of the storm, with at least 13 buildings having collapsed and 27,000 tents flooded, the media office of the Hamas-run Gaza government said.
Nearly 795,000 displaced people are at heightened risk of potentially dangerous flooding in low-lying, rubble-filled areas where families are living in unsafe shelters, the IOM said.
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Insufficient drainage and waste management also heightened the risk of disease outbreak, the UN agency added.
Materials to help reinforce shelters such as timber and plywood, as well as sandbags and water pumps to help with flooding have been delayed from entering Gaza due to ongoing access restrictions, the IOM said.
Israel says it is meeting its obligations and accuses agencies of inefficiency and failing to prevent theft by Hamas, which the group denies. COGAT, the Israeli military arm that oversees humanitarian matters, said Israel had approved 100,000 pallet requests submitted by organizations of winter-related items, shelter equipment, and sanitation supplies over the past three months.
“Over the last few months, COGAT co-ordinated with the international community and facilitated the transfer of close to 270,000 tents and tarpaulins directly to the residents of the Gaza Strip,” COGAT said in a statement.
In a displaced camp in Nuseirat, central Gaza, ankle-deep water had pooled around the tents, soaking mattresses, shoes and clothes. Working with a bucket, 50-year-old Youssef Tawtah was trying to bail the water out, but it had nowhere to go and he appeared to make little progress.
“All night long the children and I were on our feet,” he said. “How can the children handle it?”
As his family gathered around a small open fire on a sandy bank near the tent, he hauled a sopping mattress through the floodwaters. Even cooking a meal will be difficult. “Our food is ruined,” he said.
Supplies already dispatched to Gaza, including waterproof tents, thermal blankets and tarpaulins, were not able to withstand the flooding, the IOM added.
“After this storm made landfall yesterday, families are trying to protect their children with whatever they have,” IOM director general Amy Pope said.
A ceasefire has broadly held since October, but the war destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure, and living conditions are dire. UN and Palestinian officials said at least 300,000 new tents are urgently needed for the roughly 1.5 million people still displaced.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Jonathan Crickx, Unicef Palestine spokesman, described the situation as a “catastrophe”.
Many, he said, were reliant on “extremely simple and fragile tents which are consisting of a piece of tarp and some plastic on the floor to prevent the water to get in, but it is obviously completely insufficient.” – Reuters
