Rain hammered the sprawling encampmentsacross Gaza on Saturday, turning roads into rivers, soaking freezing families inside their tents and forcing people tosweep dirty waterfrom their shelters as it pooled around their beds and belongings.
The storms arrived as cold weather set in, adding new urgency to humanitarian concerns for the strip's 2 million residents, and as tensions flare up in Israel withinPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet.
Sana Abu Harad, 38, cried out as she pointed to her shivering child and the drenched set of beds on the wet and muddied floor inside her tent in a Gaza City camp.
"Everything is underwater," she told NBC News. "Why must this little child sleep in floodwater? I struggled so much just to get this tent, and now nothing protects us. Where will I live with my children now?"
The crisis has been compounded by the collapse of water and sewage systems after two years of Israeli strikes destroyed key infrastructure, leaving hundreds of thousands of people crowded into areas with almost no toilets, drainage or sanitation.
In Gaza, where an estimated 90% of the population has been displaced, more than 1.5 million people "urgently require emergency shelter assistance," the United Nations' migration agency IOMsaid last month.
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defense agency, said Saturday that the enclave was facing a "true catastrophe" due to the heavy rains.
"The mixing of rainwater with sewage has caused an environmental disaster and will lead to health catastrophes," he told NBC News. "There is no sewage system, no rainwater drainage system, and no water reservoirs; all of them have been destroyed by Israel, along with all the infrastructure."
The U.N.said last weekthat Israel has rejected over 100 requests for the entry of relief materials, including "blankets, winter clothes, and tools and material to maintain and operate water, sanitation and hygiene services."
Such restrictions continue to hamper humanitarian efforts, deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told journalists in New York.
COGAT, the Israeli body in charge of humanitarian aid in Gaza, said on X last week that "hundreds of trucks carrying food, water, fuel, gas, medicines, medical equipment, tents, and shelter supplies enter the Gaza Strip every day."
The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote Monday on a U.S. proposal for a U.N. mandate for aninternational stabilization force in Gaza, which has faced pushback from Russia, China and some Arab countries.
Tensions have flared up in Israel over ajoint statementin support of the resolution, organized by the U.S., which said the ongoing peace process "offers a pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood."
The reference to Palestinian statehood has incensed two far-right members of the Israeli Cabinet, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who on Saturday pressed Netanyahu to disavow it.
In apost on X, Ben-Gvir called on him to clarify that Israel "will not allow the establishment of a Palestinian state in any form," while Smotrichsaid in an X post thatNetanyahu must "make it clear to the entire world" no such state would ever exist.
Netanyahu is reliant on continued support from ultranationalists to maintain his majority.
The prime minister said at a government meeting on Sunday that Israel's opposition to a "Palestinian state in any territory has not changed."
"I don't need reinforcements and tweets and lectures from anyone," he added.
The deployment of an international security force inside the enclave has proved a major obstacle in advancing negotiations for the next phase of the ceasefire, as well as Hamas' disarmament, the future governance of Gaza, and the remains of three Israeli hostages that have yet to be returned from Gaza.
With Gaza's infrastructure still in ruin and storms battering its makeshift camps, those living there can only hope for future conditions to improve.
Ma'in Albuhteiti, 50, sleeps inside his Gaza City tent with seven of his children, but was awoken at 3 a.m. as rain swept over his family.
"Look at the bedding, the furniture, and the state of things," he said. "We were completely flooded, we couldn't move."
"If there were proper shelter for us, we would go, we cannot manage," he continued. "The situation is extremely tragic, and all the rain is pouring on us."