This is Diaa Ostaz, I’m speaking to you from Gaza. Two months after the ceasefire, while the fighting has slowed, the suffering has not, especially as winter sets in. Heavy rainstorms over recent days have flooded shelters across the Gaza Strip. I have walked through displacement areas where tents are standing in water, homes are collapsing, and families are trying to survive freezing temperatures with almost no protection.
According to the Palestinian civil defense, more than 17 residential buildings have collapsed. That’s because the war left 92 percent of the homes on the ground in the Gaza Strip totally destroyed or damaged, according to the United Nations.
So, as a result of the strong storms, 17 residential buildings have collapsed. They said that thousands of emergency calls have been received from families trapped by flooding, and around 90 percent of shelters have been flooded, and nearly all displacement tents are damaged. Everything inside these shelters is soaked: mattresses, blankets, clothes, leaving people exposed to the cold and elements. So, 17 people have died, including children, some from collapsing buildings and others from the extreme cold. I met Om Haitham Ouda, an elderly woman from the eastern [part] of Gaza City. Now she’s living in a partially destroyed building. She told me that “the water comes in day and night and we don’t sleep at all.”
Her son called her saying his child was suffering from hypothermia inside the flooded tent, and he asked her, “Where should I go?”
As I mentioned the United Nations says most homes in the Gaza are damaged or destroyed, leaving families with nowhere safe to return to. Aid is entering, but it’s not enough, especially for winter shelter and reconstruction. As temperatures drop, families here remain trapped between rising water, rubble, and uncertainty. For many in Gaza, winter has become another form of suffering. This is the reality on the ground. The people worldwide see that we are in Gaza in a ceasefire, but the suffering still continues
.Mr. Ostaz writes more about how winter rains are affecting people in Gaza in Fractured Lives: ‘Where Should I Go, Mother?’