Rainstorms flood tents of Gaza's displaced as Israel steps up strikes

CAIRO/GAZA - Heavy rains flooded tent encampments of displaced Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Monday, adding seasonal winter misery to communities already devastated by 13 months of war, as Israeli forces stepped up strikes in the enclave.

Downpours overnight inundated tents and in some places washed away the plastic and cloth shelters used by displaced Gazans, most of whom have been uprooted several times during the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants.

Some placed water buckets on the ground to protect mats from leaks and dug trenches to drain water away from their tents.

Many tents used early in the war have now worn out and no longer offer protection, but the price of new tents and plastic sheeting has shot up beyond the means of displaced families.

Suad Al-Sabea, a mother of six from northern Gaza, now lives inside a classroom with broken windows at a school housing displaced families in Khan Younis in the south of the Strip.

Sabea sells the bread she bakes in a wood-fueled earth oven to make a living for her children. But rainwater spoiled the flour and damaged the oven, threatening to put her out of work.

"I was scared of life or death, now we worry about the rain," she said.

"The dough drowned in water, and many mattresses drowned in water. It was raining on top of my head and I kept baking to provide for my children," Sabea told Reuters.

Some other encampments closer to the beach were flooded, and some tents were swept away by high waves.

"The sea took away my little daughter, thank God we were able to rescue her," said Mariam Abu Saqer, who used to live in a tent by the beach before it was flooded by seawater.

"Where should we go, wherever we go, they tell us there is no space," she said.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said around 10,000 tents were either washed away or damaged due to the winter storm, appealing for international help to provide displaced families with tents to shield them against the rain floods.

"According to government field assessment teams, 81% of the displaced persons’ tents are no longer usable. Out of 135,000 tents, 110,000 are completely worn out and urgently need replacement," it said in a statement.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said thousands of displaced people were affected by seasonal flooding and demanded new tents and caravans from aid donors to shield them.

The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said in a post on X that winter's first rains mean even more suffering.

"Around half a million people are at risk in areas of flooding," it said. "The situation will only get worse with every drop of rain, every bomb, every strike."

ISRAEL UPS STRIKE ON GAZA

Meanwhile, Israeli military strikes intensified across the enclave. In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike killed at least four people, medics said, while tanks deepened their incursions in the northern edge of two towns of Beit Hanoun, and in Beit Lahiya, and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave's eight historic refugee camps.

Medics said seven Palestinians were killed by two Israeli airstrikes in the area of Jabalia.

On Monday, residents said Israeli planes dropped new leaflets on Beit Lahiya ordering remaining residents to leave to the south, saying the area would come under attack and providing them with a map.

Residents said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.

Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,200 people, and uprooted nearly the entire population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.

The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Mohammed Salem in Gaza, Editing by William Maclean and Jonathan Oatis)