Key takeaways
- Gaza's Government Media Office says about 70,000 tents flooded in 12 hours; Reuters reported no fatalities at the time.
- Civil Defence says it lacks equipment and tarpaulins; a municipal spokesman says drainage can handle 20 percent at best.
- OCHA says available supplies cover 18 percent of shelter needs; Israel's COGAT said the rain had been expected.
Gaza's first winter storm of the season flooded displacement camps across the Strip on Saturday 7 November. According to Gaza's Government Media Office, which Reuters describes as Hamas-run, at least 70,000 tents were flooded in 12 hours. The office said tens of thousands of displaced people were affected and injuries were caused. Civil Defence, the Palestinian emergency service, said it took about 1,500 distress calls. Reuters reported that no fatalities had been reported at the time. None of these figures has been independently verified.
Rain had been falling since about 10pm on Friday in al-Mawasi, the coastal area of southern Gaza where Al Jazeera says more than 900,000 displaced people are sheltering. Al Jazeera's Rami Abu Taima reported this from Khan Younis. By early Saturday, AFP saw families fleeing camps in Gaza City, the north and central Gaza. Al Jazeera footage showed people wading through ankle-deep water and children barefoot in mud and sewage. Water rose 30 to 40 cm (12 to 16 inches) at several shelter sites, it reported. "This is the first day of rain, and of course we are already flooded. What will happen if it rains again the next day? This is only the first day and we're already overwhelmed," Olfat Magdoub, a Gaza City camp resident, told Reuters.
Rescuers say they had little to respond with
Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told AFP the agency "is operating without any equipment or capabilities". "We cannot face the consequences of this storm on our own," he said. Raed al-Dahshan, director of civil defence in Gaza governorate, told Al Jazeera: "Civil Defence does not have a single tarpaulin or a single tent. We deal only with saving lives, and that is not enough."
Reports of building collapses differ. Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, said two people were hurt when a wall fell in northern Gaza. Anadolu, citing medical sources, reported five injured in separate incidents when two walls of buildings damaged in earlier Israeli strikes collapsed and a sheet of corrugated metal fell during the storm. Reuters, citing Civil Defence, said three abandoned houses collapsed without causing injuries. Al Jazeera reported that rescuers evacuated residents of a partly collapsed building in Nuseirat.
Gaza Municipality spokesman Hosni Muhanna told Al Jazeera that eight pumping stations and three main stormwater basins are out of service. He said what remains can handle "about 20 percent of rainwater capacity, even under the best of circumstances". Municipal and civil defence officials told Reuters that fuel shortages and damaged equipment left them unable to cope. They said Israel had destroyed hundreds of vehicles during the war, including those used to pump water.
Observers are reading: how control of crossings, camp administration and stalled talks each shape who can get shelter into Gaza before the next storm.
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What to watch
The ceasefire took effect on 10 October 2025 with Egyptian, Qatari and American mediation. Reuters reported that it called for the eventual reconstruction of Gaza, but little progress has been made. Al Jazeera reports that many Palestinians in Gaza are spending a fourth winter outside their homes. "Our suffering is repeated every winter," Um Muhammad al-Hersh, 45, who lives with her family in a tent in western Gaza, told AFP. Nasser al-Hajj, 54, lives in a Nuseirat tower block hit in a September 2025 Israeli strike. "Rent is expensive, and a tent is not safe either," he told the media.
Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan warned, as quoted by Common Dreams, of "a catastrophic deterioration in health and environmental conditions". He cited growing risks of disease. Al Jazeera's Abu Taima said more than 125,000 families along the coast are at particular risk of having tents swept away by the sea.
Four things will show whether the pattern holds. They are further rain, disease reports, daily truck volumes and whether the 50,000 waiting tents cross. The fourth is whether the Cairo and ceasefire talks address shelter at all.
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