Witnesses have described the frantic struggle to save three members of a family buried by a landslide triggered by high winds and heavy rain in Gaza.
A sand bank overlooking a camp for displaced families south of Deir al-Balahcollapsed on Sunday, killing five people and crushing at least three tents.
“It was a horrifying sight,” said Abdul Karim al-Sahhar, 30, originally from Izbat Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. “We saw people buried beneath the sand and rocks. None of them was moving or making a sound. Even the tent had disappeared completely. There was no trace of it left.”
Among the casualties was an eight-year-old, a six-year-old and their mother.
Sahhar, whose own shelter was badly damaged in the landslide, said the children’s father was outside the family tent and so survived. “One of his children had called him to come and eat with them,” he said. “He was a little late returning, and then the collapse happened.
“The father started shouting: ‘Save my children! Save my children!’ People came and started digging [but] there was a huge boulder on top of the victims. The young men had to break it into pieces so they could reach the people buried underneath.”
Abu Darbali, another witness, said the collapse of the embankment sounded like an explosion. “We found that three tents were covered completely after the mountain collapsed on top of them,” he told Reuters. “People were under the rubble and we couldn’t see them.”
Video posted to social media showed residents using hammers to break large rocks and others removing sand with shovels, searching for people trapped underneath using flashlights.
The UN said more than 26,000 households had reported damage to shelters or belongings after the weekend’s rainstorms.
The vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million live in tent encampments or the ruins of bombed-out buildings, with reconstruction yet to begin after Israel’s relentless two-year military assault launched after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.
“The collapse [this weekend] was waiting to happen. [Gaza] is extremely overcrowded. People are just trying to find a place wherever,” said Toby Fricker, a spokesperson for Unicef, which has been working to prevent similar tragedies and improve drainage in camps for the displaced.
In a statement, the Hamas-run government media office said about “70,000 tents sheltering tens of thousands of displaced people were flooded on the first day” of rains. It also noted the “collapse of dozens of cracked walls and roofs, which caused injuries”, some critical, in various areas of the tiny territory.
A US-brokered ceasefire last year called for the eventual reconstruction of Gaza, but little progress has been made. Negotiators have failed to agree on terms for Hamas to disarm or for Israel to withdraw its troops, which control about two-thirds of the territory from which residents have been ordered to leave.
Israel says no reconstruction can happen before Hamas is disarmed.
Sahhar said he and his family were now homeless. “My tent and everything I own are now buried under the sand. My mattress, household utensils and all my belongings – everything was buried. I could not retrieve anything,” he said.
Mustafa Qazzaat, a member of the Gaza City council, said Israel had not allowed prefabricated homes to shelter the displaced since the truce was announced, and only permitted the entry of limited numbers of tents.
Many so-called “dual use” items remain restricted, such as metal tent poles. Humanitarian workers said they instead had used wooden poles fashioned from palettes used to transport food.
Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees aid to Gaza, said over 91,000 tents and over 8,200 trucks containing tarpaulins, blankets and winter clothinghad reached Gaza, as well as convoys carrying supplies of fuel and engine oil to power pumping facilities and other humanitarian installations.
Earlier this year, an assessment compiled by shelter specialists in Gaza revealed that thousands of tents supplied by China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to shelter displaced Palestinians offered only limited protection against rain and wind.
