150,000 Tents Await Entry as Floods Hit Gaza Camps

At least one infant reportedly drowned, while a mother, her two children and three other children from the same family were killed when a sandbank collapsed onto their tents. “While families slept, water flooded their tents and engulfed entire camps,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. He said children were left shivering without winter clothing and families lost what belongings they had left.

OCHA said Gaza urgently needs more vacuum trucks and mobile dewatering pumps. Wassem Mushtaha, who leads Oxfam’s response in Gaza, said Israel was restricting shelter materials and that 65% of Gaza had been rendered off-limits. Oxfam has carried out emergency maintenance on rainwater drainage networks and supplied repair tools, he said. Spare parts, engine oil, pipes and heavy machinery are also needed, alongside shelter materials.

Save the Children estimates about 1.2 million people in Gaza, including more than 560,000 children, are living in “critical or catastrophic” conditions in makeshift shelters. The Norwegian Refugee Council’s secretary-general, Jan Egeland, said tents and tarpaulins cannot withstand heavy rain and strong winds and many have already worn out. OCHA reported Friday that Gaza had no emergency shelter kits available after Israeli authorities rejected timber shipments.

An October 2025 ceasefire agreement called for 60,000 mobile homes and prefabricated shelters to be allowed into Gaza; Israel has allowed almost none to enter, according to the source. Jaber al-Kaseeh, in his 70s, told Al Jazeera his family fled their tent in az-Zawayda after floodwaters rushed in. He said their tent was damaged and muddy, and they had received none of the promised aid. Dozens of people, including at least 26 children and newborns, have died of hypothermia in Gaza over the past two winters, the source reports. Save the Children and Oxfam called for aid and repair materials to be allowed in.