CAIRO: Heavy rains flooded tent encampments of displaced Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Monday, adding seasonal winter misery to communities already devastated during the past 13 months, as Israeli forces stepped up strikes in the enclave.

Downpours overnight inundated tents and in some places washed away the plastic and cloth shelters used by displaced Gazans, most of whom have been uprooted several times during the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants.

Suad Al-Sabea, a mother of six from northern Gaza, now lives inside a classroom with broken windows at a school housing displaced families in Khan Yunis in the south of the Strip. She sells the bread she bakes in a wood-fuelled earth oven to make a living for her children, but rainwater spoiled the flour and damaged the oven, threatening to put her out of work.

“The dough drowned in water, and many mattresses drowned in water. It was raining on top of my head and I kept baking to provide for my children,” she said.

Some other tents closer to the beach were swept away by high waves.

The UN Pal­­estinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said in a post on X that winter’s first rains mean even more suffering. “Around half a million people are at risk in areas of flooding,” it said. “The situat­ion will only get worse with eve­ry drop of rain, every bomb, every strike.”

Israel ups strikes on Gaza

Meanwhile, Israeli military stri­kes intensified across the enclave.

In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli air strike killed at least four people, medics said, while tanks deepened their incursions in the northern edge of two towns of Beit Hanoun, and in Beit Lahiya, and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps.

Medics said seven Palestinians were killed by two Israeli air strikes in the area of Jabalia.

On Monday, residents said Israeli planes dropped new leaflets on Beit Lahiya ordering remaining residents to leave to the south, saying the area would come under attack.

Israeli attacks in Gaza has killed more than 44,200 people, mostly civilians, and uprooted nearly the entire population at least once.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2024