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Gaza: Displaced Palestinians face floods, deaths in cold weather

Gaza’s civil defence yesterday received hundreds of distress calls by people requiring evacuation from the flooded camps.
8 min read
31 December, 2024

Thousands of tents in displacement camps in central and southern Gaza were flooded yesterday due to heavy rains, exacerbating the horrific living conditions for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the war.

Gaza’s civil defence said it had received hundreds of emergency calls to evacuate displaced people whose shelters were flooded by the rain.

Meanwhile, another Gaza newborn froze to death yesterday amid plunging winter temperatures, bringing the total number of deaths from hypothermia to six.

The harsh conditions are expected to continue today, with more rain forecast across the strip and low temperatures to remain amid lack of aid entry and complete siege of the enclave.

5:41 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

This live blog on Israel's war on Gaza has now ended. Make sure to visit our website for further updates. Thanks for following.

Photos: Gazans struggle amid floods, freezing temperatures
4:46 PM
°®Âþµº Staff & Agencies
Flooded tents and despair in Gaza: Displaced civilians fight for sur
A displaced Palestinian child walks through the rain in Deir al-Balah, Gaza [Getty]
Displaced Palestinians receive food distributed by an aid organization amid heavy flooding in Deir al-Balah, Gaza [Getty]
Palestinians struggle with cold and rainy weather as they try to survive in makeshift tents in Gaza City, Gaza [Getty]
Palestinians struggle with cold and rainy weather as they try to survive in makeshift tents in Gaza City, Gaza [Getty]
US attack "flagrant violation" of Yemen sovereignty: Houthis
4:15 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

The spokesperson for Yemen's Houthi movement has condemned US strikes as a "flagrant violation" of the country's sovereignty.

"The American aggression against Yemen is a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of an independent state and crude support for Israel to encourage it to continue the genocide against the people of Gaza," Mohammed Abdul Salam wrote on Telegram.

Floods cause "extensive damage" in Khan Younis camps: UNRWA
3:27 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

Heavy rain has caused "extensive damage" in camps housing displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, with more than 100 shelters flooded, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said this afternoon.

"Displaced people, already living through the unlivable due to the war, are now battling heavy rainstorms," it wrote in a post on X.

Israeli forces close Kamal Adwan hospital following raid
3:05 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

The Israeli military has begun work to permanently shutter Gaza's Kamal Adwan hospital days after attacking the facility and forcibly evicting its patients, according to Yedioth Ahronoth.

Israeli troops raided Kamal Adwan-- one of the northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals -- last week, detaining hundreds of people, including the facility's director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and other medical personnel.

Haaretz reported last week that the military would not allow doctors to continue to work at the hospital and said that it was part of its plan to forcibly displace the entire population of northern Gaza.

US bombs Yemen, Houthis vow response
2:26 PM
°®Âþµº Staff & Agencies

Yemen's Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said that the country would continue to defend itself after several U.S. strikes targeted facilities in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday.

The US military said that it carried out strikes against Houthi targets in Sanaa and coastal locations in Yemen on Monday and Tuesday.

"On Dec. 30 and 31, US Navy ships and aircraft targeted a Houthi command and control facility and advanced conventional weapon production and storage facilities that included missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles," the U.S. military's Central Command said in a post on X.

The Iran-backed militant group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel for its brutal war on Gaza.

The US military bombed several targets in the Yemeni capital on Tuesday [Getty]
French ministers in Lebanon for talks with army chief
2:00 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

The French foreign and defence ministers travelled to Lebanon on Monday meet the head of the Lebanese army, Joseph Aoun, who has been touted as a potential candidate to become the country's next president.

MENA
Live Story
PA security forces continue assault on Jenin camp
1:47 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

The Palestinian Authority is continuing its assault on the Jenin refugee camp for a third week in an operation against what it describes as "outlaws".

Security forces killed at least five people and wounded dozens of others in a series of raids over the past week targeting armed groups fighting the Israeli army such as the Jenin Brigade. 

The operation has been heavily criticised by Palestinian political and human rights groups, who have called on the PA to stop pursuing the militants.

Palestinian security forces during clashes in Jenin [Getty]
Israel pounds Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza
1:30 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in an attack on north Gaza's Jabalia early on Tuesday as displacement tents around the enclave have started to flood, amid worsening weather conditions.

The attacks on Jabalia come just one day after bombings killed 27 Palestinians around Gaza and more hospitals were shelled and damaged.

The Israeli army also bombed Gaza City’s sewage pumping station, raising the alarm over a health and environmental catastrophe in the area

Israeli troops storm West Bank town of Beit Furik: report
1:21 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

Confrontations erupted in Beit Furik, a town located east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, after Israeli troops launched an assault.

Reports from Al Jazeera Arabic indicate that the situation quickly escalated as Israeli forces entered the area, leading to violent clashes with fighters.

Stay tuned for more updates from °®Âþµº as details emerge.

Shin Bet takes responsibility for Arouri killing
12:31 PM
°®Âþµº Staff

Israel's domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet has officially taken responsibility for the assassination of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon earlier this year, according to Israel's state broadcaster.

Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau and founding commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in January.

Dozens of patients evacuated from Gaza for treatment
12:04 PM
°®Âþµº Staff & Agencies

Dozens of patients and the wounded have been evacuated for treatment outside the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where the United Nations says Israel's attacks on medical facilities have pushed the healthcare system to the brink of collapse.

The 45 patients left the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis early Tuesday and traveled through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel, Palestinian health officials said. They will receive treatment in the United Arab Emirates.

The Health Ministry says several thousand Palestinians in Gaza need medical treatment abroad. Israel has controlled all entry and exit points since capturing the southern city of Rafah in May. Israel’s offensive, launched after Hamas’ attack on 7 October 2023, has gutted the country's healthcare system and forced most of its hospitals to close. Those that remain open are only partially functioning.

Palestinian patients are transferred out of Gaza for medical treatment [Getty]
Gaza's population has fallen 6% since the start of the war
11:52 AM
°®Âþµº Staff

Gaza's population has fallen 6% since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian statistics agency.

Since the war began in October 2023, Israel has killed more than 45,500 people and about 100,000 others have left the strip, corresponding to around 6% of Gaza's pre-war population, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said.

UN: Israeli claims of militants using Gaza hospitals 'vague'
11:11 AM
°®Âþµº Staff & Agencies

The report also that Israel's claims that Gaza hospitals were being improperly used for military purposes by Palestinian groups were "vague".

"Insufficient information has so far been made publicly available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information," the UN rights office report said.

UN: Gaza healthcare on 'brink of total collapse'
10:52 AM
°®Âþµº Staff & Agencies

A United Nations report published Tuesday found that Israeli strikes on and near hospitals in the Gaza Strip had left healthcare in the Palestinian territory on the verge of collapse.

The report by the UN human rights office said such strikes raised grave concerns about Israel's compliance with international law.

"Israel's pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza, and associated combat, pushed the healthcare system to the brink of total collapse, with catastrophic effect on Palestinians' access to health and medical care," the UN human rights office said in a statement.

OHCA: Israel continues to block aid access to Gaza
10:05 AM
°®Âþµº Staff

Israel is continuing to "systematically hinder" the entrance of aid to Gaza, the UN's humanitarian relief agency (OCHA) has said.

"The very means of people’s survival are being dismantled in the Gaza Strip. This includes an onslaught on health care, emergency services and humanitarian access alongside relentless attacks that kill and maim civilians by the hour," it said.

Israel has blocked almost all aid from entering northern Gaza since October [Getty]
Displaced Palestinians face 'death from cold', Hamas warns
8:57 AM
°®Âþµº Staff

Hamas warned of "the rise in deaths in the Gaza Strip as a result of the severe cold wave", saying in a statement that seven people, including six babies, had died as a result of cold weather and lack of heating.

"We urge the UN and Arab and Muslim countries to urgently work for allowing relief requirements and tents into Gaza to protect hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians from cold and the disastrous consequences of the continuing Zionist aggression," the statement said.

The Hamas media office posted on Telegram saying that it had "repeatedly warned" of the danger of the winter season.

Rain storms had flooded hundreds of tents used by displaced people in central Gaza today.

The Palestinian civil defence said that they were receiving hundreds of distress calls from displaced Palestinians whose tents and homes were destroyed by flooding.

Fresh round of Houthi missiles target Israel
8:56 AM
°®Âþµº Staff

Yemen's Houthis have launched a fresh round of missile attacks on Israel, the group's media reported. 

Two ballistic missiles from Yemen were launched at Israel, Al-Masirah TV reported this morning saying that they hit close to Ben Gurion airport and forced two million people to flee to shelters. 

Houthi official Nasruldeen Amer said on X that the missiles reached Israeli "skies [...] without any form of interception". 

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said on X last night that it "intercepted one missile" launched from Yemen, "before it crossed into Israeli territory". 

It added that alerts were activated in central Israel due to "fears of falling fragments".

Israel says intercepted two rockets fired from north Gaza
8:46 AM
°®Âþµº Staff & Agencies

The Israeli military said it intercepted on Monday two projectiles fired from northern Gaza, where Israeli forces press on with their offensive.

"Following the sirens that sounded at 8:37 pm (1837 GMT) in the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip, two projectiles that crossed from the northern Gaza Strip were intercepted" by the air force, the military said in a statement, hours after another projectile from Gaza fell in an open area.

In recent days, the military has intercepted several rockets fired from northern Gaza.

Two killed in Gaza as aid convoy looted: WFP
8:44 AM
°®Âþµº Staff & Agencies

Two people have been killed in northern Gaza as gunmen attacked an aid convoy, the World Food Programme (WFP) said Monday, prompting Hamas to accuse to UN agency of having failed to coordinate security.

Gazans face dire conditions after nearly 15 months of war, triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, with humanitarian agencies repeatedly warning not enough aid was reaching Palestinians in need due in part to looting as well as Israeli restrictions.

The WFP said in a statement that "a coordinated movement to bring in 40 trucks on behalf of humanitarian partners" on Sunday "was faced with violent, armed looting, resulting in the deaths of two".

Heavy rain triggers flooding in Gaza displacement camps
8:30 AM
°®Âþµº Staff

Thousands of tents in displacement camps in central and southern Gaza were flooded yesterday due to heavy rains, exacerbating the horrific living conditions for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the war.

Gaza’s civil defence said it had received hundreds of emergency calls to evacuate displaced people whose shelters were flooded by the rain.

Meanwhile, a Gaza newborn froze to death yesterday amid plunging winter temperatures.

The harsh conditions are expected to continue today, with more rain forecast across the strip and low temperatures to remain.

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