Displaced Gaza residents face more misery as heavy rain lashes enclave

Mr Hussein Owada has spent much of the past two days in a losing battle to prevent his tattered tent in the southern Gaza Strip from flooding as heavy rainfall pummelled the devastated enclave.

- Bilal Shbair, Abu Bakr Bashir and Aaron Boxerman

Displaced Palestinians in a tent in Gaza City on Nov 14, amid flooding. Many in Gaza are staying in tent camps without access to running water or electricity after the ceasefire. PHOTO: SAHER ALGHORRA/NYTIMES

(SAHER ALGHORRA/NYTIMES)

“The rain was heavy and the holes were too many. Our mattresses and blankets were flooded,” said Mr Owada, 23, who lives in the tent with his parents and three younger siblings.

“J have no plan. | gave up planning a long time ago. With zero resources, planning is meaningless,” he added. “We are just trying to survive here.”

The punishing rain and chilling winds that have swept through Gaza since Nov 14 are a bitter reminder that despite a ceasefire that went into effect in October, life remains far from normal for the enclave’s two million people.

After more than two years of a war set off by the Hamas-led Oct 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, many in Gaza are still displaced and staying in tent camps without access to running water or electricity.

Roughly 1.5 million people are in need of “emergency shelter items”, according to the United Nations, which also assessed that the war damaged or destroyed about 81 per cent of all structures in the enclave.