Weekend downpours have turned parts of Gaza into flood zones, damaging an estimated 40,000 family shelters and leaving hundreds of thousands struggling with the fallout, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has reported.
UNRWA said the flooding has affected people across the territory, with Director of UNRWA Affairs Sean Jones estimating that about 200,000 people have been impacted by the current conditions.
The storms turned deadly on Sunday when torrential rain caused a sand embankment to collapse onto tents, killing a woman and three children.
With reconstruction still not under way after Israel’s two-year military assault, most of Gaza’s two million residents are living either in tent encampments or amid the ruins of bombed-out buildings, leaving many exposed when severe weather hits.
In an interview on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Jones said Israeli restrictions on bringing machinery into Gaza have contributed to drainage systems becoming blocked during periods of heavy flooding.
He said roughly half of Gazans are living in areas vulnerable to flooding, adding that drainage systems are “completely overwhelmed” when rain intensifies.
Mr Jones joined the programme from Jordan, saying he is not currently permitted to enter Gaza.
He said the international community “has not yet been allowed to begin recovery and reconstruction”.
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UNRWA, he said, remains focused on immediate relief efforts, describing the response as still in a “humanitarian phase” rather than one oriented “as much long term”.
Mr Jones said emergency response teams have delivered new tents, winter coats and blankets to families whose shelters were damaged or destroyed by the flooding.
Elsewhere, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan argued that armed conflict is exacting a toll on the environment as well as civilians, speaking before world leaders at the COP31 conference.
“Nature – no less than people – is also paying a heavy price for armed conflicts.
“The starkest example of this is Gaza… what has taken place in Gaza is not only a genocide, but it is also an ecocide,” Mr Erdogan said to applause at the UN climate summit in Antalya.
Meanwhile, the UN children’s agency said Israel had turned down the import of equipment required to repair a key water facility in Gaza, warning the site could overflow and put nearby communities at risk through flooding and disease.
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said one of the affected sites is the Sheikh Radwan stormwater basin in Gaza City, which he said is contaminated with sewage and vulnerable to overflowing following heavy rainfall.
He told reporters UNICEF had spent a year working with Israeli authorities and US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace on a $3 million repair plan, but that COGAT — the Israeli military body overseeing humanitarian affairs in Gaza — had rejected the project in recent days.
