Rain and rubble: Gaza families face a double threat in makeshift homes

For the past several days, Saber Dawas and his wife have been struggling to keep their seven daughters warm and dry after heavy rain and strong winds destroyed their tent in Gaza.

The family has been living in a makeshift tent at al-Yarmouk stadium in central Gaza since their home in Beit Lahia was destroyed during Israel’s war on the enclave.

Since winter began, Saber has lived in constant fear. Their fragile tent offered little protection from rain or wind, and he knew it could collapse at any moment.

Two weeks earlier, rainwater had already flooded the tent, reaching nearly 30cm. His daughters fell ill with colds that lasted for days. Desperate to prevent it from happening again, Saber borrowed money from one of his relatives to buy a plastic tarpaulin and reinforced the tent with wooden poles.

But when the latest storm hit Gaza a few days ago, his efforts proved useless.

“I spent the first night of the rain holding the tent up with my own hands as rain poured in from every direction,” Saber told Middle East Eye.

“It felt like I had done nothing at all. The tent collapsed on us in the first hours of the rain.”

His daughters shivered through the night as water soaked everything inside.

“All our clothes, blankets and food were drenched,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do or where to take my family.”

Saber’s youngest daughter, just two years old, suffers from stomach cancer and has a severely weakened immune system.

“I keep moving her from one tent to another in the camp,” he said. “Everything is flooded, and she has the flu. I can’t even get her medicine. I wish I had died before reaching a day where I watch my daughters freezing while I can’t provide them warmth.

“Is this what a ceasefire looks like? Instead of being in our homes we are dying of cold in fragile tents.”

Around them, dozens of families at the camp are facing the same ordeal, especially those living in worn-out tents unable to withstand the rainy winter.

‘Water from above, sewage from below’

Just a few tents away, Sanaa al-Ayubi, 36, lives with her husband – who lost both legs – and their two children Sarah, nine, and Mohammed, six, due to Israeli airstrikes that bombed their home in Tel al-Hawa in western Gaza City in December 2024.

Sanaa was pregnant at the time and seriously injured in the attack but she later recovered the family has been sheltering in a worn-out tent ever since.

It turned out that the rain fell over malfunctioning sewage wells during the war.

“For three days, the rain hasn’t stopped,” Sanaa said. “Water pours on us from above, and sewage rises from under the tent.”

'My daughter has been cold for three days. I dress her in layers, with a hat and gloves, but it still feels like we’re sleeping in the street'

- Nesma Hassan

During the rain, the tent’s central wooden pole snapped, collapsing on the family.

“My husband was crawling in the water,” she recalled. “His body was completely soaked. I tried to hold the tent with a broomstick, but the rain was too strong.”

Her husband cannot use his prosthetic legs because the tent is filled with water.

“I had to carry him outside,” she said. “We are freezing. There’s bacteria forming on his legs because they’ve been wet for so long.”

Most of their bedding and clothes were soaked with sewage water and had to be thrown away.

She contacted Gaza Municipality after a sewage pit burst beneath their tent.

“They told me they would come,” she said. “No one has shown up.”

Before the war, Sanaa was a primary school teacher and ran a small learning centre beneath her home. Today, her family relies entirely on charity meals distributed at the camp.

“We can’t afford to buy new dry clothes, a tent, or medicine.”

'The wind tore everything away'

The suffering is not limited to tents.

In al-Karama neighbourhood in northern Gaza City, 28-year-old Nesma Hassan lives with her four-year-old daughter in the remnants of her family’s destroyed home. Her husband, Ali, was killed in an Israeli air strike in 2024.

Nesma’s family four-storey building was heavily damaged a month before the ceasefire, leaving only two roofed rooms standing.

“We tried to prepare for winter,” Nesma said. “We bought wood, tarps and plastic sheets. But when the rain started, the wind tore everything away.”

Water leaked into every corner of the house, including the two remaining rooms.

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“We spent the entire night scooping water out,” she said. “The furniture and mattresses were soaked. The rain was too heavy to control.”

Nesma and her daughter huddled in one corner of the room, trying to avoid the flood.

“My daughter has been cold for three days,” she said. “I dress her in layers, with a hat and gloves, but it still feels like we’re sleeping in the street.”

“She also feels panicked by the sound of thunder and raindrops inside the room, as well as the disturbing noise of air brushing against the rubble of the house.”

Nesma plans to buy a tent and pitch it on the rubble outside.

“Before the war, I loved winter,” Nesma said. “It was a time of warmth and family. Now I just wait for it to end, afraid the rest of the house will collapse on us.”

According to Gaza’s civil defence, at least 11 people were killed and 11 injured over the past three days after partially destroyed homes collapsed due to heavy rain and strong winds.

“We responded to 13 partially destroyed homes that collapsed, most of them in Gaza City and the north,” the civil defence said in a statement.

“Our teams also dealt with hundreds of flooded tents, pumping out water and opening drainage channels.”