Palestinians in Gaza are facing an impossible choice this winter. With more than 400,000 homes destroyed in the war, Gazans are forced to choose between living in tents exposed to the elements or risking living in the ruins of buildings that may collapse at any moment.
There are no tents in Hiyam Abu Naba. She had to make such a terrible choice. She and her family live in the shell of a building in the Hamad neighborhood of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, but there are no walls to protect them from the elements, and the upper floors of the building are covered in pancakes.
Palestinian civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said heavy rains and flooding killed at least 17 people in the Gaza Strip last week, including children. Some people reportedly died as a result of the building collapse. More than 90 homes were damaged and around 90% of shelters for people displaced by the Israeli war in Gaza were completely flooded.
“On the first day of the storm, I heard stones cracking above my head,” Abu Naba said. “Sand is falling in my eyes…This is not life.”
She watches her 5-year-old son weave his way through the electrical wires hanging from the crumbling ceiling. Currently, wire is used to hang clothes and keep them from touching wet floors. Electricity is just a distant memory here.
Her dream of returning to her remaining home in Shujaya, Gaza City, seems far away. It is inside the so-called “Yellow Line”, an area occupied by Israeli forces as part of a cease-fire agreement to end a two-year war, and is off-limits to residents.
In a nearby building, Aoun al-Haj poked at the roof of his shelter with a stick to show stones and sand crumbling beneath his feet. But this roof is the crumbling foundation of the apartments above, twisted steel beams buckling under the pressure of so many stories pancaked above.
“Those three days were like the beginning of a war…I sat here and didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Concrete blocks falling, water leaking, wind and bitter cold,” Al-Hajj said, recalling a recent storm.
Any buildings that partially remain in this area are at the same risk. As Al-Hajj solidifies crumbling walls with mud and covers gaping holes with tarpaulins, he knows this is a Band-Aid solution to a life-threatening problem.
The only option, he says, is to sit on the beach in a flooded tent.
Further north, in Al-Shati camp, a building collapsed on Tuesday, killing one man sitting inside and injuring two others. One neighbor said an Israeli airstrike destroyed the building next door and caused extensive damage. Winter weather and wind were the last straw. “Houses keep collapsing. Someone please fix our lives,” said a neighbor. “Houses are collapsing day after day, people are dying day after day.”
Mohammad Fatih, from the Gaza Civil Defense Agency, which is responsible for emergency services, was called to the scene to rescue the survivors. Fatih says he does not have excavators or other heavy machinery to rescue survivors trapped under collapsed buildings. “Every time there is a winter storm, many families and many children will die,” he warned.
The Civil Defense Department has urged people to evacuate damaged buildings during heavy rains, but its advice has fallen on deaf ears. For those living in the rubble, there is no other option. Civil defense groups also say the tents are woefully inadequate for winter shelter in Gaza. But there is no other choice.
The United Nations has announced that 1.3 million Palestinians are in need of emergency evacuation this winter. The latest figures from COGAT, the Israeli government agency responsible for moving goods into Gaza, show that nearly 310,000 tents and tarpaulins have recently arrived, along with more than 1,800 trucks loaded with warm blankets and clothing.
The United Nations and international NGOs are united in calling on Israel to allow more aid to Gaza to help hundreds of thousands of homeless people survive the winter. The United Nations said it was blocking Israel from bringing aid directly into Gaza.
Among those who died last week due to weather conditions were a two-week-old infant and an eight-month-old infant, both of whom died of hypothermia, authorities said.
Recent storms have flooded about 90% of shelters for displaced people, and more families will be forced into precarious, gravity-defying shelters that were once homes or apartment complexes.
Bakr Mahmoud Al-Sheikh Ali said there had been a building collapse in his Khan Younis neighborhood. “People are afraid, but brother, I need shelter. In this cold climate, we don’t need tents or water in the winter…Whatever happens, happens.”
The overwhelming feeling of all Gaza refugees interviewed by CNN was that there is no way to survive.
Mohammad Al sawalhi and Tareq El Helou contributed to this report.
