Torrential rain battered the Gaza Strip, flooding tens of thousands of tents used by displaced people and leaving many without shelter. Local authorities announced on Saturday that injuries had also been reported.
About 70,000 tents housing tens of thousands of displaced people were flooded on the first day of the bad weather, according to the Hamas government’s press office.
The same source said that dozens of cracked walls and roofs collapsed, causing injuries. Some of those hurt were in serious condition in various areas.
On Saturday morning, hundreds of families were leaving flooded displacement camps in the central and northern parts of the Gaza Strip, as well as in Gaza City.
Civil Defence received more than 1,500 calls for help overnight, according to a spokesperson. The agency’s teams are being forced to operate “without any equipment or means,” the spokesperson told Agence France-Presse.
Urgent appeal
The spokesperson added that the emergency aid organisation, which is part of Hamas’ governing apparatus, cannot “deal with the consequences alone” of the bad weather. The spokesperson issued an “urgent appeal to the international community and humanitarian organisations” to help.
The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah in the West Bank, called on the international community to take immediate action. According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, it stressed that Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip had worsened the already catastrophic living conditions in the enclave.
Mustafa Kazat, a municipal councillor in Gaza and head of the enclave’s emergency response committee, said Israeli authorities are not allowing either prefabricated homes to house people who lost their homes or a sufficient number of tents to enter.
“The Palestinian enclave urgently needs 200,000 prefabricated homes and materials to remove the rubble of collapsed houses and buildings, reopen the main roads, and immediately restore electricity and heating,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Source: CNA
