Israel Winter storm exacerbates the suffering of people in Gaza
A severe winter storm has exacerbated the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the largely war-torn Gaza Strip.
29.12.2025, 15:58
SDA
Water penetrated many of the tents in which the people, weakened after two years of war, seek shelter from the cold and rain. Some were torn apart by squalls, as the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. According to a report by the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera, tents near the beach were destroyed by high waves. According to the civil defense, one woman and one child were killed.
"The water entered our tent before sunrise. Within minutes, everything was flooded - the mattresses, the blankets and our children's clothes," Khaled Abu Labda told the German Press Agency (dpa). "We spent the rest of the night standing in the cold because we had nowhere else to go," lamented the 41-year-old from Deir al-Balah, which is located in the central part of the Gaza Strip. Aisha al-Najar expressed her despair: "We survived months of bombing, but now the rain is killing us."
Houses damaged by the war are in danger of collapsing
Those seeking shelter in the remaining houses live in constant danger that the buildings damaged in the war with Israel could collapse. Many of the two million inhabitants of the coastal strip are emaciated by repeated flight, bombing, hunger and a lack of health care.
The war was triggered by the massacre by the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas and other extremists from the Gaza Strip in Israel on 7 October 2023, which left around 1,200 people dead and more than 250 displaced. According to the health authority in Gaza, at least 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since then. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October.
The inhabitants of the coastal strip have been repeatedly hit by storms since the beginning of December. Aid organizations have criticized Israel for blocking the transport of living containers and other mobile shelters to the Gaza Strip. The emergency operations center of the Hamas-controlled government put the need for housing containers at 200,000.
