In Gaza’s Deir al-Balah city, dozens of tents — many already tattered from months of use — have been blown away or flooded by the strong winds and rain, leaving families struggling to repair the damage, patching torn sheets of plastic and piling up sand to hold back the water, Reuters reports.
“The water seeped inside and on the mattresses and my children’s clothes. I changed the children’s clothes this morning to their underwear,” said Sabreen Abu Shanab, a mother of three, whose tent was flooded.
“They were sleeping and soaked wet to their underwear. I swear. The pants and underwear [were all soaked]. Everything is soaked, the blankets, the pillows, everything,” added the woman.
Abu Shanab suffers from asthma and despite medication, she has not been feeling better for a month because of the cold weather and the lack of heavy blankets and clothes.
In the second winter of Israel’s operation in Gaza, the weather has added an extra element of suffering to hundreds of thousands of people already displaced, often multiple times, while efforts to agree a ceasefire go nowhere.
