Palestinians living in tent cities on shore of southern Gaza fear disease, cold and hunger following first storm of season

Everyone knew what was coming. But there was little the inhabitants of the tent cities that crowd the shore of southern Gaza could do as the storm approached. Sabah al-Breem, 62, was sitting with one of her daughters and several grandchildren in their current home – a makeshift construction of tarpaulins and salvaged wood – when the wind and the driving rain broke across Gaza last week.

“Everything collapsed … We repaired our shelter but in the night it fell down again under the heavy rain. All our belongings were soaked. The day the winds blew was a black day for us,” said Breem, originally from Khan Younis but displaced multiple times since the start of the war in October 2023.