Displaced Gaza families struggle as winter storm hits

Deir el-Balah, Gaza – After a night of relentless rain, Arafat al-Ghandour and his wife, Nour, finally exhaled in relief as the morning sun emerged, if only briefly, over the soaked displacement camp.

The couple, parents of five, live in a worn tent riddled with holes. They spent the night battling water pouring in from every direction.

Arafat, 39, shares the cramped space, no larger than eight square metres (86sq feet), with 15 family members, including his elderly parents, his sister and her family, and his brother’s wife and children. The conditions, he says, are “inhumane”.

“All night I was plugging the holes with rags and plastic bags,” Arafat told media. “I haven’t slept yet. And they say the storm hasn’t really started.”

In the early morning, the family hurried to spread their drenched clothes, blankets, and belongings in the sunlight.

“We finally breathed a sigh of relief when the sun came out,” said Nour, sitting beside her husband. “All our clothes were soaked. We have nothing else. Even our blankets and the children’s clothes were drenched. I took the kids outside immediately just to dry off a little.”

Nour described the panic of waking up to find water pouring into the tent.

“My children were asleep and soaked. I started waking them one by one so they wouldn’t get even more drenched,” she said. “This isn’t living.”

Once a season she loved, winter now makes her anxious and miserable, with only meagre shelter offered by the tents.

“We’ve lost faith in everything. I’ve given so many interviews and made appeals. They all come to film our tents and our lives, and the media and everyone else see us crying out, but nothing changes,” Nour tells media angrily, pointing to the tattered sides of her tent.

“Would anyone accept living in this place? To face winter like this?”

“Would anyone accept living like this?”

The family fled Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza a year and a half ago and settled in Deir el-Balah after losing their home. With no means to rebuild or return, they remained in the south.

“There’s a tent there and a tent here. So we said, ‘Why try to move?’ We stayed,” said Arafat, who has been unemployed for two years.

“Can you believe we all sleep crammed together in this place without any privacy? Imagine me sleeping here with my wife next to me, while my brother’s wife and brother sleep directly opposite us?” Arafat says bitterly.

“No man with any sense of honour in the world would accept this. But what can we do? We have no other options. Our dignity has been trampled on from all sides.”

He looked around the camp, frustrated.

“Where are the caravans and housing units the media keeps talking about? We never see anything. Why isn’t anyone solving our suffering?”

The family, like thousands of displaced Palestinians, lives with no income and cannot afford food, clean water, clothes, or blankets.

“I can’t even feed my children,” Arafat said. “How am I supposed to buy a tent at these ridiculous prices? If charity kitchen (tekkiya) comes, we eat; if it doesn’t, we don’t. That’s our life now.”

According to Arafat, a good quality tent costs between 1,800 and 2,500 shekels, equivalent to about $550 to $775.

Tarpaulins and nylon range in price from 250 to 400 shekels (roughly $75-125) depending on their length, he said.

“These tents should be given to the displaced for free, not sold at prices no one can afford,” he said. “How can an unemployed man who has been struggling for two years, like me, buy a tent to shelter my children?”

Deeply anxious about the storm expected to hit Gaza from Wednesday night until next Saturday, Arafat desperately hopes his plight will be heard and his family’s suffering seen, even just once.

“We heard about caravans and housing units coming into Gaza. All lies. Empty promises,” he said. “I just want a decent tent to protect my children. Nothing more.”

Nearby, Basma al-Sheikh Khalil, 66, stood silently in front of her rain-soaked tent, watching sewage flow through the muddy paths between tents.

“Our situation is not like anyone else’s,” she laments to media with a sigh. “A woman my age needs rest and warmth, not this endless exhaustion we’ve endured for two years.”

She described watching her young grandchildren tremble through the night.

“I was so sad to see my young grandchildren shivering from the cold last night and continuing into the morning in the rain.”

“These children have suffered so much in the war.”

“My heart breaks for them,”  Basma said, tears welling in her eyes.

Basma recounted to media their recurring suffering with the winter, their tattered canvas tents unfit for habitation.

“Last night, we were completely flooded. The water reached halfway up our feet, and my children and I spent the night wading through it to get out.”

To make matters worse, their makeshift cesspool overflowed with rainwater, flooding the entire area with sewage.

“You can imagine the stench, how it permeated everything, how our tents and blankets were soaked with sewage,” Basma said, pausing.

“What can I say? What can I say? Our lives are beyond words.”

Pointing to a hole in the ground covered with scraps of wood and worn-out cloth, she added, “This filthy sandy hole has been our toilet for two years. Can you imagine what our lives must be like?

“Who understands us? Who feels our lives and what we endure? No one,” Basma said, clapping her hands together.

Basma and her family, her husband, their six married sons, and their children, were displaced to Deir el-Balah after fleeing the Shujayea neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, fleeing intense Israeli bombardment of their area.

“We escaped by a miracle. We left everything behind, no blankets, no furniture, nothing.”

They returned to northern Gaza after October’s ceasefire, but headed back to the south as the situation deteriorated.

“The situation is catastrophic throughout Gaza. Our lives are a constant cycle of destruction, displacement, hunger, exhaustion, and suffering. It’s as if we’re destined to continue living like this,” she adds.

For Basma, the changing seasons are no longer a source of optimism now that she lives in a tent.

She said that the summer and its scorching heat were extremely difficult, but the winter rains were causing even more suffering.

“In summer, we would run away from the tent to find shade under any wall or nearby building, but the rain and its downpour? How do we deal with it? Where do we go in it? How do we endure the bitter cold and the rain at the same time?”

She shook her head slowly.

“Summer or winter. Every season is torture. We have no one but God.”