UN reiterates call for Israel to end restrictions on Gaza aid
A spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres says the UN’s humanitarian office processed more than 160 flooding alerts since this morning in Gaza amid Storm Byron. Farhan Haq said the UN needs restrictions on humanitarian operations to be lifted to be able to adequately respond to Palestinian families’ needs.
“This includes ending the ongoing ban on most international NGOs and on UNRWA, which continue to serve communities despite operating under severe restraints,” he told reporters during a briefing at UN headquarters in New York.
“To further scale up the response, we also urgently need more crossings, more routes and approval to bring a wider range of relief items into Gaza.”
‘Only a trickle’ of shelter supplies allowed into Gaza since ceasefire began
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) says the UN and international aid groups have only been able to bring 15,600 tents into Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect in October.
Those tents have gone to help approximately 88,000 Palestinians, NRC said earlier this week as Storm Byron bore down on the Palestinian enclave. But 1.29 million people across Gaza are in need of shelter.
“At least 761 displacement sites hosting around 850,000 people are at risk of flooding,” NRC said. “International aid organisations remain blocked from bringing in relief and nearly 4,000 pallets of shelter materials have been rejected.”
A Palestinian woman tries to clean her tent in Gaza City, December 11
‘We have been drowned’: Palestinians in Gaza tent camps call for help
Um Salman Abu Qenas, a displaced mother in a tent camp in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, says it’s been impossible to sleep because floodwaters filled her family’s tent. “We have been drowned. I don’t have clothes to wear and we have no mattresses left,” she told The Associated Press.
Sabreen Qudeeh, also in the Khan Younis camp, said her family also woke up to water dripping from the tent’s roof with water from the street soaking their mattresses. “My little daughters were screaming,” she said.
Another displaced resident of the camp, Ahmad Abu Taha, said there was no tent that escaped the flooding. “Conditions are very bad. We have old people, displaced, and sick people inside this camp,” he said.
Palestinians cross a flooded street following heavy rain in Khan Younis, on December 11
Hamas says Gaza faces ‘true catastrophe’ as Storm Byron hits
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem says Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza continues amid a “tightening of the siege and the prevention of genuine reconstruction that would protect the residents from the effects of the storm”.
As we’ve been reporting, displaced Palestinian families living in makeshift tents across Gaza are reeling from torrential rains, flooding and strong winds brought on by Storm Byron.
In a statement shared on Telegram, Qassem called on the Gaza ceasefire deal mediators and other countries involved in the agreement to exert “real pressure” on Israel to allow Palestinians to begin the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas spokesman also urged Arab and Muslim-majority nations “to take serious and effective action to save the Gaza Strip from this catastrophic situation it is experiencing due to the destruction and successive storms”.
