TEHRAN — Rain that began late Friday had flooded about 70,000 tents across the Gaza Strip by Saturday, leaving tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians with sodden bedding, no dry ground, and almost no one able to help.

In al-Mina camp, Rana Adnan Hmeida, 29, was awake from midnight, trying to keep her two-month-old daughter warm as water soaked the blankets.

“What am I supposed to do? Hold my children or try to stop the water?” she told Al Jazeera. Olfat Magdoub, another displaced resident, said she had already spent four days on blankets spread over the floor after an earlier downpour. Now her mattresses are wet again.

Medical sources told Anadolu that five people were injured when two walls weakened by earlier Israeli strikes collapsed, and a sheet of corrugated metal fell. Civil defense logged 1,500 distress calls.

Gaza City took 60 millimeters of rain in 12 hours, about 15 percent of its annual total, according to municipal spokesman Hosni Muhanna.

About 15 kilometers of stormwater lines and 212 kilometers of sewage network are damaged, eight pumping stations and three collection basins are out of service, and what remains handles at most 20 percent of the flow.

Water rose 30 to 40 centimeters in several camps. Muhanna says 270 camps and shelter sites in the city remain exposed.

Nobody has the equipment to fix it. Officials say the war destroyed hundreds of municipal vehicles, bulldozers, and pumps among them. Civil defense can still pull people from danger but cannot house them.

Authorities say at least 300,000 tents are needed, and more than 2,000 buildings could collapse. “We stand helpless before this tragic and difficult reality in Gaza,” said public relations director Abdullah al-Majdalawi.

The shortage predates the storm. UNRWA says 1.98 million people, about 94 percent of Gaza’s population, need shelter and basic supplies, and 58 percent are in critical or catastrophic need.

The UN humanitarian office warned in October that 950,000 people lived in sites at moderate or high flood risk, more than 400,000 of them at high risk. One assessment found 294,250 families needing shelter help before winter, with available supplies covering 18 percent of it.

Palestinian authorities and aid groups blame Israel’s restrictions on tents, tarpaulins, mobile homes, fuel and building materials.

The U.S.-backed “ceasefire” that took effect on October 10, 2025 promised reconstruction. Talks are now deadlocked, and Israeli forces hold about two-thirds of the territory.

The killing never stopped. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli fire has killed at least 1,610 Palestinians since the truce, including single days with 23 and 30 deaths, and wounded 5,819.

Strikes have intensified in recent weeks. Last Sunday, Israeli attacks killed eight people in Khan Younis and Gaza City, five of them police officers. On Tuesday, a drone struck a tent camp in central Gaza City and killed a 17-year-old girl. Israel says Hamas is rearming and violating the truce, and that four of its soldiers have been killed.

More than 74,640 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. A UN commission of inquiry concluded in 2025 that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

“We have no resources, no tarpaulins, no tents, and no one is checking on us,” displaced Gaza resident Rafiq Ghattas told Reuters, standing barefoot in a pool of rainwater.