Middle East & North Africa
Gaza: first heavy rains flood displacement sites, leaving more than 3,900 households without shelter, says UN
OCHA says the first heavy rains flooded displacement sites across Gaza, destroyed more than 6,000 family shelters and killed six people, including an infant.
An infant reportedly drowned and five people were killed, three of them children, when a sand dune collapsed onto tents as the first heavy rains of the season swept across Gaza at the weekend, according to the UN aid coordination office OCHA. The office published its update on Monday, 9 November.
Rain and strong winds began on Friday night and flooded displacement sites, collapsed damaged buildings and disrupted services in all five governorates, OCHA said. The dune collapsed onto tents at the Al Berka Reservoir, west of Deir al-Balah, killing three children and two women and injuring one other person, according to local authorities.
What the UN says was damaged
UN Deputy Special Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov, speaking from Ramallah, said rain could not be prevented but more must be done to protect the vulnerable. He noted that most people in Gaza live in worn-out tents that could not withstand what would count as a moderate storm elsewhere. About 65 per cent of Gaza’s population, some 1.4 million people, live in tents or makeshift shelters.
By 8 November, humanitarian partners had received appeals for aid from more than 26,000 households whose shelters or belongings were damaged. More than 6,000 family shelters were reportedly destroyed and 17,400 damaged, and more than 3,900 households currently have no shelter at all. Partners have assessed the needs of 1,877 households and have so far supported 422 households at 29 displacement sites.
Water reached 1.5 metres in some locations. Civil defence units received 2,166 distress calls but could respond to only 218. At least 55 learning spaces serving some 55,000 children were flooded, and health facilities were damaged, forcing some medical teams to suspend services. Mine action partners warned that floodwaters could expose or displace explosive ordnance.
Aid waiting outside Gaza
The UN and its partners are pumping out water, improving drainage, reinforcing sites with sandbags, repairing shelters and delivering emergency supplies, but stocks of tents, tarpaulins, blankets and clothes inside Gaza are virtually exhausted. More than 150,000 tents bought by humanitarian partners and UN member states are waiting outside Gaza, including about 117,000 from the Egyptian Relief Committee in Al-Arish.
Mr Alakbarov called for the urgent lifting of unnecessary restrictions and delays on items such as vacuum trucks, dewatering pumps, heavy machinery, spare parts, tents, tarpaulins, blankets and winter clothing. UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told the daily briefing on Monday that Israeli efforts to facilitate rebuilding in Gaza had been insufficient. “We certainly can be getting more in. We just need the permissions from the Israeli authorities to get them in through the various checkpoints,” he said.
The UN also said strikes continue to hit populated areas. On Saturday, UN personnel visiting a displacement site in Gaza City had to take cover when gunfire erupted nearby.
The diplomatic track runs alongside the humanitarian emergency. Geopolitiki has reported on Israel reportedly approves a first multinational force of about 250 in Gaza – and says no to Turkey – sources, and earlier on Gaza: gunfire damages tents at a Rafah displacement site and forces an aid group out, OCHA says.
