UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said heavy rain and cold were intensifying already dire living conditions in the besieged enclave, where humanitarian aid remains far below what is needed.
“More rain. More human misery, despair and death,” Lazzarini said in a post on the US social media company X.
He said Palestinians in Gaza “are surviving in flimsy, waterlogged tents and among ruins,” warning that aid supplies “are not being allowed in at the scale required.”
Meanwhile, Lazzarini said UNRWA “could multiply these efforts tomorrow if aid flowed in.”
Separately, the Palestinian government said Gaza requires about 200,000 prefabricated housing units to meet urgent humanitarian needs for displaced people amid the severe winter conditions.
In a statement, the government’s operations room said the current weather system had flooded and blown away thousands of displacement tents across the enclave, further deepening the humanitarian emergency.
Gaza has been hit since Saturday by a polar low-pressure system, the third of the winter season, bringing heavy rain and strong winds.
Gaza has struggled to endure harsh weather in recent months, after two earlier weather depressions caused the deaths of 17 Palestinians, including four children.
Those deaths were attributed to the collapse of buildings already damaged by bombardment by the Israeli regime, as well as flooding and the uprooting of tens of thousands of displacement tents.
Weather conditions pose acute dangers to displaced Palestinians living in worn-out tents or severely damaged, high-risk buildings that have been repeatedly struck since October 2023.
The Israeli army has killed more than 71,200 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,200 others since October 2023 in Gaza, in a genocidal war that has left the enclave in ruins.