The Director General of the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Munir al-Barsh, said on Sunday that 350,000 displaced Palestinians are sleeping in the open after their tents were flooded by the storm. He asked, “Is the world waiting for our children to freeze to death?”
Al-Barsh added in a press statement, “What is the world waiting for? Is it waiting for children to arrive at the hospital with frozen limbs or suffering from dehydration?”
He continued, “Protect the children in their displacement camps, open the crossings, and allow the entry of reconstruction materials and tents.”
Al-Barsh pointed out that “thousands of tents are waiting at the crossings, but their entry is not permitted (by the Israeli army), while 350,000 displaced people are left in the open as a result of this storm.”
Earlier on Sunday, a woman and four Palestinian children were killed, and others were injured, when a sand and rockslide buried tents sheltering displaced people who had been forced from their homes by the Israeli army in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Search operations for missing persons are ongoing, according to the Gaza Civil Defense.
Since Friday evening, the Gaza Strip has been hit by a low-pressure system accompanied by heavy rain and strong winds, exacerbating the suffering of displaced people living in dilapidated tents that lack protection from the rain and cold.
