Gaza storms kill 14 Palestinians, including 3 children

By Ibrahim Dahman, Eyad Kourdi and Mostafa Salem, CNN

(CNN) — Severe weather conditions over the past 72 hours in Gaza have left 14 people dead, including three children, the director general of the Gaza-based Health Ministry Munir Al-Boursh told CNN.

Over the past two years, many Palestinians were left with no option but to move into tents and temporary shelters amid the devastating war that left much of the enclave in ruins.

Tents flooded with water and Palestinians were left “wading through sewage, mud and debris with no proper shelter,” aid group, Oxfam, said in a statement Saturday, adding that the difficult conditions are a “direct result of the systematic obstruction of aid.”

Palestinians pleaded for help amid the cold weather and rain that’s left their belongings soaked and destroyed.

“The mattress, the blanket, everything, even the clothes, have become soaked with water. … Bring me a mattress. Bring me a tent. I beg you, for God’s sake, help me,” Um Mustafa told CNN on Friday.

She said the only food she had left, a bag of flour and rice, were ruined after they were soaked with water leaving her panicking in the middle of the night.

“I went out screaming to the neighbors, asking them for help,” she said. “All my children became soaked by the rainwater.”

Tents, temporary shelters and even buildings, weakened by Israeli bombardment during the war, collapsed while families were inside, according to authorities and Palestinians in Gaza. An eight-month-old baby named Rahaf died of hypothermia, her family told CNN.

⁠More than 27,000 tents were swept away and flooded, the Hamas-run government media office said in a statement. The ”complex humanitarian disaster” has affected at least 250,000 people, the media office said in a statement.

Israel and Hamas reached a truce in October, allowing the release of all living Israeli hostages and bringing the two-year war to a halt. Israel allowed aid into Gaza to implement the first stage of the agreement.

But Oxfam said Israeli authorities “continue to block the entry of basic shelter materials, fuel and water infrastructure,” which is leaving people exposed to “entirely preventable harm.”

“When access is denied, storms become deadly. This suffering is being manufactured by policy, not weather,” the group said in a statement.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency tasked with facilitating aid distribution in Gaza, said in a statement that Israel is “committed to” and “fully upholds” its “obligation to transfer humanitarian aid trucks in accordance with the agreement.”

“In this framework, hundreds of trucks enter each day carrying food, water, fuel, gas, medicines, medical equipment, tents and shelter equipment,” the agency said. “Over the last few months, COGAT coordinated with the international community and facilitated the transfer of close to 270,000 tents and tarpaulins directly to the residents of the Gaza Strip.”

“We are planning a catered humanitarian response for the upcoming winter,” COGAT said.

Despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public embrace of the deal in September, significant gaps remain for the progression of the ceasefire agreement. The US is pushing to move quickly into the next phase, but Israel is conditioning major steps on the return of the final deceased hostage and has been resisting US efforts to resolve a standoff with a pocket of isolated Hamas militants in the Israeli-occupied parts of southern Gaza.

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