Byron, The storm that caused damage and flooding across Greece and Cyprus is now leaving distressing images where they often seek refuge: Gaza. Heavy floodwaters inundated thousands of precarious campsites where many attacks remain after more than two years of an Israeli invasion that destroyed or damaged 92% of buildings, according to UN data. In reality, some stores contain a lot of steel-reinforced plastic extracted from the rubble and occasionally lifted onto the coastline. They could only provide shelter from the onslaught of a storm that hit in recent hours. An eight-month-old baby died of hypothermia in Jan Yunis after invading her store while she was sleeping, according to health authorities.
The Civil Protection emergency service announced last July in a press release that it had received more than 2,500 calls for help in 24 hours during the winds and floods. Its spokesperson, Mahmud Basal, warned in a video of the “obvious disrepair” and “complete destruction” of the shelter centers. “The conditions are very difficult, very harsh,” he warned. Israel destroyed, with bombing and controlled explosions, several relief vehicles (including excavators and those used to pump water) so that humanitarian services could weather the storm with only a moderate amount of fuel and not enough fuel for travel.
Some tents in the campaña flew into the air, so families set up arena bags to stop it. Others attempt to empty them of mud or water, or remove sterilizations and mattresses, in the hope that something will happen before they arrive at night. Above all, there is a lot of clay that has formed since the day before and that we try to clean with the sun, even in the rain.
“We can’t do anything. The blankets are soaked and it takes us about three days to dry them before we can go back to sleep on them. These stores don’t protect us at all from the rain or bad weather,” assured one of the victims, Ahmed Salem, to the Reuters agency, in Jan Yunis, in the south of the territory.
In the images, we can see streets completely flooded with people traveling on donkeys, or walking with water even on wheels. Five of the upstairs shafts are visible below by Byron’s Power. The Israeli Meteorological Service experiences its peak intensity in Gaza between July and the first hours of summer., defraud up to 150 millimeters of rain (the equivalent of a month and on average) and winds of 90 kilometers per hour.
The deceased baby’s name was Rahaf Abu Jazar. Her mother, Hejar Abu Jazar, told media in Gaza (Israel has barred journalists from freely entering for more than two years) that he had fed her before putting her to sleep. “When we woke up, we found rain and wind on her. And suddenly the cold died. Nothing left her,” he said as he cried and measured his daughter’s corpse.
“Another layer of misery”
It is “another layer of misery” faced by those who “have lost everything and need everything”, as the main official of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, lamented. Of more than two million Gazans, all were displaced, usually repeatedly, during the invasion and are now awaiting reconstruction to get their lives back.
The misfortune in Gaza delighted Israeli meteorologist Tzaji Peleg, who explained on national television channel 14 (favorable to Netanyahu) that “there will be no campaign event (in Gaza) in his place”. The presenter replied, ‘Oh, you’re making us happy,’ and the weatherman continued, ‘I don’t have a problem with that, I don’t even meet people.’ “Of course,” responded the presenter.
Rain and cold are the latest natural tragedies exacerbating something that does not exist: the lack of shelter (with devastation unprecedented since World War II) and Israel’s reliance on shelter. In October alone, more than 9,000 children in Gaza required hospitalization for acute child malnutrition, according to data released this month by the United Nations children’s agency. Between July and September, as Israel strengthened its food siege and prepared to invade the capital, the number of babies killed on the day of their birth increased by 75%. This increase is, as might be expected, due to malnutrition among mothers.
UN agencies and international NGOs on the ground denounce the fact that Netanyahu’s government continues to prevent the number of trucks carrying humanitarian aid from being agreed at the height of the October fire: at least 600 per day. The Hamas government puts this date at 234. The UN, at 113, but only through its mechanism, which does not include all the trucks of those waiting in Egypt. Israeli authorities have denied this.
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