Posted on December 29, 2025
Winter rains lashed the Gaza Strip over the weekend, flooding displacement camps with ankle-deep water as Palestinians struggled to stay dry in flimsy, worn-out tents. These Palestinians have been displaced after more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war, which has destroyed much of the besieged enclave.
In Khan Younis, soggy blankets and flooded clay ovens compounded the misery. Children in flip-flops navigated through puddles while adults desperately used shovels and cans to remove water from tents or pulled collapsed shelters out of the mud.
“Puddles formed and there was a bad smell,” said Majdoleen Tarabein, displaced from Rafah in southern Gaza. “The store flew away. We don’t know what to do or where to go.”
She and her family tried to dry the soaked blankets by hand.
“When we woke up in the morning, we discovered that water had entered the tent,” said Eman Abu Riziq, also displaced in Khan Younis. “These are the mattresses. They’re all completely soaked.”
She added that her family is still mourning the death of her husband less than two weeks ago.
“Where are the mediators? We don’t want food. We don’t want anything. We are exhausted. We just want mattresses and blankets,” accused Fatima Abu Omar as she tried to stabilize a shelter that was collapsing.
At least 15 people, including three babies, have died this month from hypothermia following rains and falling temperatures, according to Gaza authorities.
Emergency workers have warned against staying in damaged buildings due to the risk of collapse, but with much of the territory in ruins after relentless and continued Israeli bombardment, shelter options are scarce. United Nations estimates from July indicate that nearly 80 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged.
Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, 414 people have been killed and 1,142 wounded, and the total Palestinian death toll has reached at least 71,266, according to the Health Ministry.
Aid deliveries to Gaza are far below the amounts required by the ceasefire, humanitarian organizations report. The Israeli military authority overseeing humanitarian aid said 4,200 aid trucks entered Gaza last week, along with medical equipment and winter supplies, but declined to specify the number of tents provided. Aid groups emphasize that current supplies cannot meet overwhelming needs.
Since the ceasefire, approximately 72,000 tents and 403,000 tarps have entered Gaza, according to Shelter Cluster, an international aid coalition led by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“People in Gaza are surviving in flimsy, flooded tents and ruins,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. refugee aid organization in Gaza, said on social media. “There is nothing inevitable about this. Relief supplies on the scale needed are not being allowed in.”
