DaysofPal – The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned on Saturday that the already dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has reached a breaking point due to torrential winter rains that have flooded makeshift tents and called for the immediate entry of shelter supplies.
“Winter rains in Gaza are making conditions even more desperate. Families are taking shelter anywhere they can, including in makeshift tents,” UNRWA said in a statement on social media, stressing that it has the necessary supplies “to help people get through winter” and urging that their entry be facilitated without delay.
Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA’s media adviser, said Israel is blocking the entry of hundreds of thousands of tents, blankets, mattresses, and winter clothing, enough to support roughly 1.4 million Palestinians.
The effects of that blockade, he added, were laid bare by several hours of rainfall that displaced tens of thousands of families whose shelters quickly collapsed.
Abu Hasna observed that displacement has turned into a cyclical and constant phenomenon. Many people, he said, have been uprooted 15 to 20 times since the war began, their tents repeatedly moved and degraded until they no longer qualify as shelter.
That instability, combined with harsh weather and overcrowding, has produced “hundreds of thousands of illnesses” in recent days as immune systems weaken.
The storm exposed the fragility of life across Gaza, where more than 259,000 homes have been destroyed, leaving around 1.5 million Palestinians homeless. Families are now stranded in open areas, streets, and deteriorating camps that offer no protection from rain or cold.
Civil defense teams reported hundreds of distress calls overnight but were unable to respond due to fuel depletion and a near-total lack of equipment.
According to the Gaza government media office, 93% of tents across the Strip are no longer usable, and at least 300,000 new tents are urgently needed.
Thousands of people now sleep completely unprotected in the open air, while Israeli forces continue demolishing buildings and firing on civilians in northern Rafah and Khan Younis.
Conditions in Gaza City mirror the devastation elsewhere. With Israeli forces controlling more than half of the city, the remaining residents are confined to battered tents, flooded streets, and improvised encampments that cannot withstand winter weather.
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