Gaza Storm Destroys 6,000 Shelters While 150,000 Tents Wait Outside

GAZA CITY — Heavy rain and strong winds from November 6 through the weekend destroyed more than 6,000 family shelters across Gaza and damaged another 17,400, according to a United Nations humanitarian assessment. At least 3,900 households were left with no shelter at all. The storm exposed a crisis that aid agencies had warned about for months: families were entering winter in worn-out tents while basic shelter supplies and drainage equipment remained outside the territory.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said more than 26,000 households appealed for help after flooding spread through all five Gaza governorates. About 600 families were displaced yet again. Damage reached tents, learning spaces, sanitation facilities and humanitarian sites, while sewage and rainwater entered shelters in low-lying camps. OCHA said 66 latrines were destroyed and 618 damaged, deepening the risk of contaminated water and disease.

The storm also killed. The UN reported on November 10 that an infant reportedly drowned and five people—three children and two women—were killed when a sand dune collapsed onto tents near the Al Berka reservoir west of Deir al-Balah. Those deaths were not simply the result of bad weather. They occurred in a landscape where mass displacement, damaged infrastructure and scarce machinery have stripped ordinary rain of any ordinary meaning.

FILE PHOTO — Tents belonging to displaced Palestinians flooded by heavy rain in Deir al-Balah on January 23, 2025. Ashraf Amra / UNRWA, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. This image does not depict the November 2026 storm.

Humanitarian agencies said more than 150,000 tents purchased by aid organizations and governments were ready outside Gaza, including roughly 117,000 held by the Egyptian Relief Committee in Al-Arish. Inside Gaza, stocks of tents, tarpaulins, blankets and winter clothing were nearly exhausted. Aid groups also said they needed approval to bring in pumps, vacuum trucks, hoses, engine oil, spare parts and heavy machinery needed to drain flooded areas.

Israel disputes responsibility for the bottleneck. The Associated Press reported on November 11 that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected claims that Israel was delaying winter aid and blamed Hamas for Palestinian suffering. Israeli authorities said 10,000 tents had entered. The UN’s position is that approvals and crossing access remain inadequate for the scale of need. The competing claims do not change the measurable gap between the shelter waiting outside and the families sleeping in floodwater.

The shortage predates the weekend storm. In a November 5 update, OCHA estimated that Gaza still needed about 121,000 tents, 561,000 tarpaulins, 57,000 emergency shelter kits and 1.7 million mattresses. It put the winterization funding gap at $186.5 million. The International Rescue Committee said only about 2,800 tents were available inside Gaza when the storm arrived and no emergency shelter kits were in stock.

This is why shelter cannot be separated from political control. A tent is temporary protection, not reconstruction; even that protection fails when materials, pumps and fuel cannot move at the required scale. Pamphlets’ report on the Palestinian jobs and recovery plan showed how employment and public infrastructure are supposed to anchor recovery. Our assessment one year into the ceasefire documented the territorial restrictions that continue to obstruct rebuilding.

The immediate task is concrete: allow shelter materials and drainage equipment in at scale, fund the winter response, and publish transparent daily figures on approvals, crossings and distribution. The larger task is to restore homes, water systems, roads and local authority over reconstruction. Until that happens, every storm will convert displacement into another emergency—and families will keep paying for decisions made far beyond their tents.