Storm damages 70,000 tents, leaving Gaza families homeless

Storm damages 70,000 tents, leaving Gaza families homeless

Heavy rain and powerful winds have damaged around 70,000 tents across the Gaza Strip, leaving thousands of displaced Palestinian families without shelter as worsening weather conditions deepen the humanitarian crisis.

The storm, which began late Friday, also caused dozens of walls to collapse, while Gaza’s Government Media Office estimated the initial financial losses at approximately $3 million.

Medical sources reported that five Palestinians sustained injuries after two walls of buildings previously damaged by Israeli attacks collapsed. A sheet of corrugated metal also fell during the storm, causing further injuries.

Gaza Municipality spokesman Hosni Muhanna said families whose tents suffered damage had nowhere else to seek shelter, highlighting the severe shortage of safe accommodation across the territory.

He said nearly one million residents and displaced people were living in an area covering just 30 per cent of Gaza City, placing enormous pressure on already devastated infrastructure.

Muhanna warned that 270 displacement camps and shelter centres across Gaza City faced the threat of flooding. He added that damage from the Israeli military campaign had reduced the capacity of the city’s drainage network to just 20 per cent, leaving low-lying neighbourhoods especially exposed to heavy rainfall.

He called for the full reopening of border crossings to allow winter clothing, emergency relief supplies and heavy machinery into Gaza to support rescue and rehabilitation operations.

Meanwhile, Abdullah al-Majdalawi, director of public relations at Gaza’s Civil Defense, said emergency response teams had received hundreds of distress calls since the storm began, as displaced families struggled to cope with the worsening weather.