Heavy Rain Floods Abandoned Refugee Tents Of Gazans

Refugee tents for Palestinian Gaza / WHO DOK

JAKARTA - Heavy rains flooded the evacuation tents of Palestinians displaced throughout the Gaza Strip.

Heavy rains throughout the night inundated tents and in several places swept away shelters from plastic and cloth used by Gaza refugees.

Some people put water buckets on the ground to protect the mat from leaks and dig ditches to drain water from their tents.

Many of the tents used at the start of the war are now obsolete and no longer provide protection, but the prices of new tents and plastic tarpaulins have soared beyond the ability of refugee families.

Suad Al-Sabea, the mother of six children from northern Gaza, now lives in a classroom with a broken window at a school that houses refugee families in Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Sabaa sells the bread she makes in a wood-fueled oven to earn a living for her children.

However, rainwater damaged flour and damaged the oven, causing him to lose his job.

"I am afraid of life or death, now we are worried about the rain," he said.

The body drowned in the water, and many mattresses drowned in the water. It was raining in my head and I kept making cakes to support my children, "said Sabaea.

Several other camps close to the coast were flooded, and several tents were swept away by high waves.

"Laut claimed my little daughter, thank God we were able to save her," said Mariam Abu Saqer, who used to live in a tent on the beach before being submerged in sea water.

"Wherever we have to go, wherever we go, they say there is no place," he said.

Palestinian Civil Emergency Services said thousands of refugees were affected by seasonal flooding and asked for new tents and mandates from aid donors to protect them.