“It kept raining, and the cold was getting worse. Suddenly, I found my little baby motionless, dead,” the infant’s mother told Al Jazeera.
Hundreds of tents housing displaced Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip flooded for a second straight day on Thursday following heavy overnight rain from a new winter storm.
The tents became swamped after continuous rainfall from early dawn into the night, exacerbating conditions for families already displaced by Israel’s two-year genocidal war, an Anadolu correspondent reported.
Gaza’s Civil Defense stated on Thursday that it had evacuated dozens of tents in southern Rafah after they were fully submerged.
The agency’s spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, cautioned on Wednesday that over 250,000 families in displacement camps across the territory face risks from cold weather and rainwater in their deteriorated tents.
The agency cautioned that humanitarian conditions might worsen if the storm continues, particularly with no temporary shelters accessible for displaced families.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Government Media Office had warned on Tuesday that a polar low-pressure system would impact the territory from Wednesday until Friday evening, endangering hundreds of thousands of displaced families.
Since Wednesday, thousands of tents sheltering survivors of Israel’s offensive have become waterlogged, drenching bedding, clothing, and food supplies, and exposing hundreds of Palestinian families to the cold without adequate warmth or cover.
According to earlier data from the media office, Gaza requires approximately 300,000 tents and prefabricated housing units to address the basic shelter needs of Palestinians after Israel destroyed infrastructure during two years of brutal war.
The United Nations estimates the reconstruction cost for Gaza at around $70 billion due to the Israeli war, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinian and left over 171,000 injuries. The assault came to a halt under a ceasefire agreement that began on Oct. 10.