The key facts

  • The Gaza Ministry of Health reported 350,000 displaced residents without shelter after the flooding
  • Civil defense: a woman and four children died in a landslide in Deir al-Balah
  • Government Media Office: 70,000 tents were flooded in the first 12 hours of the storm

The storm has left hundreds of thousands of people without shelter

Since Friday evening, Gaza has been battered by heavy rain and storm-force winds. On Sunday, Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Gaza Ministry of Health, issued an urgent appeal for the delivery of shelter, reporting that flooding has left 350,000 displaced Palestinians without shelter, forcing them to sleep in the open. 'Is the world waiting for our children to freeze?' he said, demanding immediate action to protect children in areas where displaced people are sheltering, Anadolu reports.

Tents are waiting at the crossings

Al-Bursh called for the crossings to be opened to bring in tents and reconstruction materials. According to him, thousands of tents are waiting at the crossings, but the Israeli army refuses to let them into Gaza. Israel's restrictions on the entry of construction materials, shelter and reconstruction equipment continue despite the ceasefire regime between Israel and Hamas, in effect since October 10, 2025.

Casualties and scale of destruction

Earlier on Sunday, civil defense reported that a landslide which engulfed the tents of displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killed a woman and four children, while others were injured; rescuers continued searching for the missing. The Government Media Office stated that in the first 12 hours of the storm, 70,000 tents were flooded, and dozens of walls previously damaged by Israeli bombardment collapsed. On Saturday, civil defense reported that entire displacement camps had been flooded, with water reaching 1.5 meters in places. According to the agency, the war that began in October 2023 has destroyed homes and infrastructure across the entire Strip, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to live in temporary shelters.