KHAN YUNIS: The winter rains have made an already precarious life worse for hundreds of thousands in the Palestinian territory displaced by the war. A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been in place since October 10, following two years of devastating fighting.
But despite the truce, Gazans still face a severe humanitarian crisis, and most of those displaced by the war have been left with little or nothing. Families are crowded into camps of tents hastily erected from tarpaulins, which are often surrounded by mud and standing water when it rains. Nighttime temperatures in Gaza have ranged between eight and 12 degrees Celsius in recent days.
Nearly 80 per cent of buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to United Nations data. And about 1.5 million of Gaza's 2.2 million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza. Of more than 300,000 tents requested to shelter displaced people, "we have received only 60,000", Shawa said, pointing to Israeli restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid into the territory. — AFP
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