Fourteen Palestinians, including children, die in Gaza amid Storm Byron

Storm Byron swept through the Gaza Strip, killing at least 14 people and injuring others as strong winds, incessant rain and collapsing structures crushed families already displaced by Israel’s devastating attack on the enclave, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security.

The ministry said five people died Friday night after a house housing displaced civilians in Bir an-Naaja, northern Gaza, collapsed during the storm.

At dawn, two more people were killed when a wall collapsed and fell on tents in the Remal neighborhood of Gaza City. The day before, another person died following a structural collapse in the Shati refugee camp, while a newborn in al-Mawasi succumbed to freezing temperatures.

Gaza medical staff report alarming rise in deaths linked to exposure. A source at al-Shifa Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic that nine-year-old Hadeel al-Masri died in a shelter west of Gaza City, while baby Taim al-Khawaja died in Shati camp.

In Khan Younis, eight-month-old Rahaf Abu Jazar died after rain flooded her family’s tent.

Relatives said the family was seeking shelter in a roofless house destroyed by bombing after an Israeli airstrike destroyed their own home.

“Yesterday we were surprised to hear his mother shout: ‘My son is blue!’ so we carried the boy and went to al-Rantisi hospital,” said the child’s grandfather. “His temperature remained between 33 and 34 degrees [Celsius; 91.4 – 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit]which affected all his organs. His brain started to deteriorate, and that was it.

Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili, reporting from al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, said Storm Byron turned flimsy shelters into death traps.

“Authorities are warning that there could be flooding, heavy rain and hail until today. This is expected to threaten some 850,000 people, including many children, sheltered in 761 sites,” it reported.

“Here, tents were destroyed due to heavy rains and wind, leaving families facing ruined makeshift shelters. »

Large parts of the coastline have collapsed, further endangering tents set up just meters from the sea.

Al-Khalili said families, pushed from place to place through more than two years of Israeli bombardment, now face “an extra layer of suffering.”

“The tents are collapsing; the cold is unbearable. They basically have nowhere to go. What is happening is devastating,” he said. “It’s not just a storm; it’s a new wave of displacement, even after the war has ended. Many people here have told me that a new war really started after these floods, and people were forced to flee the flimsy shelters they had.”

Most of Gaza is ‘homeless’

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said at least 10 houses have collapsed in the past 24 hours, with more expected to collapse at any time.

Palestinians remain inside these buildings because they have no tarpaulins, tents or alternative shelter, while Israeli authorities continue to block supplies for the winter.

“Most of Gaza’s population is currently homeless,” she said.

Civil protection teams say they have recovered a body and rescued two injured children from rubble in Bir an-Naaja, and other people are believed to be trapped under collapsed houses.

The Interior Ministry said emergency teams have received more than 4,300 distress calls since the storm began and recorded at least 12 collapses of buildings previously hit by Israeli strikes.

Despite having virtually no equipment or fuel, police and civil protection teams are continuing their rescue operations, the ministry said. He urged international actors to pressure Israel to allow essential aid and shelter materials into the Gaza Strip.

“What is happening now is a wake-up call for everyone to face their responsibilities,” the statement said.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem called the storm-related deaths “acontinuation of the War of Extermination” and evidence of the catastrophic conditions that Israeli bombings left behind.

“The successive collapses of houses bombed during the war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, caused by the storm, and the resulting deaths, reflect the unprecedented scale of the humanitarian disaster left by this criminal Zionist war,” he said.

He added that children drowned in flooded tents showed that “the war of extermination continues, even if the tactics have changed”, and called for urgent international action to end what he described as genocide and to provide adequate shelter materials. Current humanitarian aid, he said, “does not protect against rainwater or cold.”