A weekend of harsh winter weather brings more death and despair to people in Gaza
A displaced Palestinian man walks in front of his tent following heavy rains in Gaza City on Saturday.
By Mohammed al-Sawalhi, Ibrahim Dahman, Caitlin Danaher, CNN
(CNN) — Fierce rain and bitter cold continued to batter Gaza this weekend, as the number of Palestinians killed by the harsh winter weather continues to rise.
Sunday saw two people killed, including a seven-year-old child, when a wall collapsed due to the cold weather, according to Gaza’s civil defense.
As Palestinians seek shelter from the heavy rain in bombed-out ruins, aid agencies have warned of the risks posed by the dilapidated buildings which are prone to collapse during the cold weather.
Twenty people have been killed by homes and buildings collapsing over the heads as they sought shelter from the severe weather conditions, the Hamas-run Government Media Office in Gaza (GMO) said in a statement on Sunday. At least 49 buildings have collapsed due to the weather since the onset of Winter, the GMO added.
For those forced to survive in flimsy, waterlogged tents, the strong winds risk blowing away Palestinian’s shelter altogether. One displaced man in a refugee camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, described how his shelter was destroyed when a nearby tree toppled onto his tent.
“This is the second tree that has fallen on us because of the wind. Where is the world for us, where are human rights?” Eyad Abu Jdeyan told CNN on Sunday. “We are sitting here in death. God protected us; otherwise, everyone here would have been martyred,” he added.
In Khan Younis, people woke up to pools of water in their tents after a night of heavy rainfall, according to a spokesperson for the Civil Defense in the Rafah Governorate. “Even livestock and animals could not live or reside (in these places). But people have been forced to live in these areas because they have no other option than to go back to their destroyed homes,” Ahmed Radwan of Gaza’s Civil Defense told CNN.
The spokesperson described the latest weather snap as a new “catastrophic situation” compounding an already dire humanitarian picture in the enclave.
The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) stressed that aid supplies are not being allowed into the enclave at the scale required, and urged that the agency could “multiply its efforts tomorrow” if aid were to flow in.
“More rain. More human misery, despair & death. Harsh winter weather is compounding more than two years of suffering. People in Gaza are surviving in flimsy, waterlogged tents & among ruins,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement on X.
The latest humanitarian crisis to pummel Gaza comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to visit President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago this week, amid a diplomatic push from Washington to reach the next phase of the Gaza peace plan.
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