As flash floods sweep through refugee camps, a single storm exposes the catastrophic reality of hundreds of thousands trapped in torn tents and ruined infrastructure.
Dr Jehad Malaka
We in Gaza did not need a severe winter or an extraordinary storm to reveal the profound tragedy and fragility of our existence. A single heavy downpour was enough to push thousands of families back to square one: flooded tents, mattresses turned into soaked sponges, and children left facing yet another night without a safe place to sleep.
What transpired with the first winter rainfall in November 2026 was no mere passing weather event. It laid bare a far deeper crisis, one that far exceeds a tent’s physical capacity to repel rain. It demonstrated that a population emerging from a devastating war without basic necessities restored is now entering another harsh winter, completely stripped of safe shelter for hundreds of thousands of displaced souls.
According to official figures in Gaza, nearly 70,000 tents were submerged during the initial hours of the storm, while Civil Defense teams logged roughly 1,500 emergency distress calls in just ten hours. These figures do not merely measure material destruction; they highlight the widening gulf between human survival needs and the dwindling capacity to respond.
Yet the critical question is not how many tents were flooded, but why a canvas tent remains the only option available to families who lost their homes years ago.
A tent was supposed to be a temporary emergency fix until displaced families could return home or transition to alternative housing. In Gaza, however, the “temporary” has stretched endlessly into years spent inside cramped, suffocating spaces devoid of privacy, ventilation, or basic sanitation, offering zero protection against the blistering heat of summer or the freezing rains of winter.
The crisis is no longer just about a shortage of tents; it is about the fundamental nature of the shelter itself and the total absence of alternatives that allow human beings to reclaim even a baseline of stability. A tent designed for short-term emergency refuge can never serve as a permanent dwelling. It cannot replace a destroyed home, provide a healthy environment to raise children, or shield the sick and elderly from the devastating effects of persistent cold and dampness. Here, the crisis transcends emergency relief, living under these conditions becomes a daily process of attrition, slowly eroding a person’s endurance and dignity.
What rendered this recent storm especially brutal is that the rain fell upon an infrastructure entirely shattered by war. Stormwater drainage networks, sewage lines, roads, and municipal facilities have suffered comprehensive destruction, while local municipalities face acute shortages of fuel, heavy machinery, and spare parts needed to pump floodwaters and clear roads. In Gaza City alone, dozens of kilometers of rain drainage pipelines and hundreds of kilometers of sewage lines remain destroyed, while primary rainwater retention basins and pumping stations have been knocked out of service.
In this sense, Gaza is not merely braving a winter storm; it is confronting the cumulative weight of long-term destruction that has crippled its ability to withstand natural elements.
The disaster does not stop at flooded tents. Countless families reside in structurally compromised buildings that have lost walls and roofs, leaving them at constant risk of collapse as winds and rains intensify. Displaced residents are thus trapped between two perilous choices: remaining in flimsy shelters that offer no protection, or returning to cracked, unsafe structures on the verge of collapse.
In every humanitarian crisis, aid is framed as the primary response. Yet Gaza’s experience proves that aid delivery is not just a matter of funding totals or truck counts; it depends on whether supplies actually reach those in need and what types of materials are permitted entry. Tents, mattresses, blankets, waterproofing sheets, and shelter repair kits are not secondary luxuries to be delayed, they are life-saving necessities to mitigate predictable disasters. Existing stockpiles are hopelessly insufficient for the skyrocketing needs. Immediate action is required to allow the entry of winterization supplies, heavy machinery, and critical spare parts to sustain basic services. Continued restrictions on shelter materials and funding shortfalls will abandon vast numbers of Palestinians to another winter inside frayed tents and decaying ruins.
This reality places a clear political and legal responsibility on the international community, one that cannot be reduced to empty statements of solidarity or seasonal fundraising drives. Protecting civilians and ensuring their survival is not an act of charity, nor should it remain hostage to reactive, seasonal interventions launched only after disaster strikes. Abandoning an entire population to drowning hazards while choking off shelter supplies and basic services means that the horrors of war do not end when the bombing pauses; they continue to haunt people within every detail of their daily struggle to survive.
The rain may eventually stop, and floodwaters may recede from some camps, but that will not signal the end of the crisis. A tent that has lost its structural integrity must be replaced; waterlogged bedding and clothing must be replenished; fractured buildings require urgent structural stabilization; and drainage networks need comprehensive rehabilitation. None of this can be addressed by handing out a few blankets or providing temporary relief for a couple of days.
Most dangerously, the recurrence of these conditions traps families in a perpetual cycle of loss: beginning with a flooded shelter, followed by the destruction of their few remaining possessions, and ending in a desperate search for another dry spot amid zero stability and vanishing options.
Gaza does not need piecemeal management for every passing winter storm; it requires addressing the root causes that transform every rainfall into a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe. This begins by opening crossings for shelter materials and reconstruction supplies, equipping municipal and Civil Defense crews with essential machinery, restoring basic infrastructure, and securing safe, dignified housing solutions for the displaced.
To reduce what is happening in Gaza to viral images of flooded tents and shivering children searching for a dry patch of ground, as heartbreaking as those images are, obscures the core of the crisis. The problem is not the rain. The problem is a manufactured reality where human beings are stripped of basic protection and left defenseless against natural elements that normal life is equipped to absorb.
It is not normal for rainfall to pose a threat to human life, for a functional tent to become an extraordinary luxury, or for families to spend their nights frantically trying to salvage what remains of their children’s dry clothes. Gaza is not asking for extraordinary privileges or impossible miracles. It asks only for what makes human life possible: safe shelter, clean drinking water, functioning sanitation, healthcare, and the essential materials to rebuild what war has destroyed.
As this winter begins, the question confronting the world is not how Gaza will survive the next storm, but how much longer its people will be forced to adapt to conditions that no human being should ever have to endure.
