KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip — While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu heads to Florida for a meeting planned Monday with President Trump, winter rain continued to lash the Gaza Strip over the weekend, flooding camps with ankle-deep puddles as Palestinians displaced by two years of war attempted to stay dry in tents frayed by months of use.
Netanyahu and Trump were expected to discuss the second phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The first phase that took effect Oct. 10 was meant to bring a surge in humanitarian aid for Gaza, including shelter, but deliveries have fallen far short. The Israeli leader made no public statement as he departed.
Nowhere to escape the rain
In the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, blankets were soaked and clay ovens meant for cooking were swamped. Children wearing flip-flops waded through puddles. Some people used shovels or tin cans to remove water from tents. Others clawed at the ground to pry collapsed shelters from the mud.
“We drowned last night,” said Majdoleen Tarabein, displaced from Rafah in southern Gaza. “Puddles formed, and there was a bad smell. The tent flew away. We don’t know what to do or where to go.” She and family members tried to wring muddy blankets dry by hand.
“When we woke up in the morning, we found that the water had entered the tent,” said Eman Abu Riziq, also displaced in Khan Yunis. “These are the mattresses. They are all completely soaked.” She said her family is still reeling from her husband’s death less than two weeks ago.
“Where are the mediators? We don’t want food. We don’t want anything. We are exhausted. We just want mattresses and covers,” said Fatima Abu Omar as she tried to prop up a collapsing shelter.
At least 12 people, including a 2-week-old infant, have died since Dec. 13 from hypothermia or weather-related collapses of war-damaged homes, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government.
Emergency workers have warned people not to stay in damaged buildings because they could collapse. But with much of the territory in rubble, there are few places to escape the rain. The United Nations in July estimated that almost 80% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged.
Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, 414 people have been killed and 1,142 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. The overall Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,266. The ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.
Aid in Gaza falls short
Aid deliveries into Gaza are substantially short of the amount called for under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, according to aid organizations and an Associated Press analysis of the Israeli military’s figures.
The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid said that in the last week 4,200 trucks with aid, including tents and winter clothing, had entered Gaza, plus eight garbage trucks to assist with sanitation. It declined to elaborate on the number of tents delivered; aid groups have said the need far outstrips the number that have entered.
Since the ceasefire began, approximately 72,000 tents and 403,000 tarps have entered, according to the Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“Harsh winter weather is compounding more than two years of suffering. People in Gaza are surviving in flimsy, waterlogged tents and among ruins. There is nothing inevitable about this. Aid supplies are not being allowed in at the scale required,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the top U.N. group overseeing aid in Gaza, wrote on social media.
Ceasefire’s next phase
Though the ceasefire agreement has mostly held, its progress has slowed.
Israel has said it refuses to move to the next phase while the remains of the final hostage killed in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war are still in Gaza. The militants killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage in the attack on southern Israel.
Hamas has said the destruction in Gaza has hampered efforts to find remains.
Challenges in the next phase include the deployment of an international stabilization force, a technocratic governing body for Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory.
Israel and Hamas have accused each other of repeated truce violations.
Shurafa and Aljoud write for the Associated Press and reported from Khan Yunis and Beirut, respectively. AP writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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