GAZA — A number of houses, walls and tents have collapsed in the Gaza Strip since Storm Byron descended upon the enclave destroyed by Israel’s genocidal war, killing at least 12 people in past 24 hours.
Three children who died from hypothermia are among the dead, reports Al Jazeera Arabic.
With the descent of Storm Byron a sense of terror has seized a population already exhausted from two years of Israel’s genocidal war with its unrelenting bombardment, starvation and chaos.
Exhausted Palestinians had little to nothing to prepare for the disastrous weather conditions.
For the 1.5 million Palestinians living under plastic sheets and tattered tarps, the storm means something more than just bad weather. It’s another danger piled on top of the current battle for survival.
For several days, meteorologists have warned that heavy rainfall and strong winds could hit the strip today, tomorrow and over the weekend, risking flash flooding and significant wind damage. What is certain, though, is that Gaza is not facing this storm with ready infrastructure, stocked shelters or functioning drainage systems.
According to the media office, the storm has begun to materialise on the ground in the enclave, leaving Gaza’s one and a half million displaced people in “direct confrontation with the danger of drowning and collapses”.
“The collapse of at least 13 homes, most recently in the Al-Karama and Sheikh Radwan neighbourhoods of Gaza City, with civil defence teams still responding to hundreds of calls for help; the flooding and destruction of over 27,000 tents belonging to displaced people, which were either inundated, swept away by floods, or torn down by strong winds,” it added.
The media office reiterated that Israel is continuing to block shelter materials, mobile homes and 300,000 tents into Gaza.
Source: Al Jazeera
