A harsh winter storm has flooded tents in Gaza and cut off one of its most important remaining lifelines – solar power.
Relentless rain and falling temperatures were accompanied by two days of cloud cover, bringing life in camps nearly to a halt as batteries ran out of power. In Gaza, where Israel's war long ago destroyed the electricity grid, solar panels have become the backbone of daily survival.
“The batteries are dead and the phones are dead because of the weather and the absence of sunlight,” Mohammed Abu Shanab, a 40-year-old resident of Gaza city, told The National.
Mr Abu Shanab runs a small solar-charging station, a business that emerged out of necessity amid almost constant power cuts. Every day, about 100 people rely on him to charge their phones and small batteries – their only connection to the outside world.
“Yesterday, today and tomorrow I am closed because there is no sun,” he said. “Imagine more than 100 people around me unable to charge their phones or light their tents at night.”
For him, the storm meant the loss of income. For his community, it meant isolation and darkness.
In a tent in Deir Al Balah, Lu’ay Abu Shaar, a 29-year-old father of three, described how the storm forced families to ration even the smallest flicker of electricity. “Since yesterday, we haven’t been able to charge our phones. We can’t light our tents at night because the batteries didn’t charge,” he said.
Almost the entire displaced population in Gaza now depends on solar energy, not by choice, but by circumstance. And when the sun disappears, the consequences ripple through every aspect of life.
“For people here, the phone means everything,” Mr Abu Shaar said. “Entertainment, watching shows, accessing the internet, passing time, it’s essential. But during storms, we can’t charge anything or do anything.”
When bad weather approaches, families immediately begin reducing their phone usage, stretching battery life the way others might stretch food supplies. “We’ve been deprived of the simplest thing in life,” he said. “Just a little electricity to charge our phones and the batteries that light our nights.”
Floods and mud
Thousands of makeshift shelters collapsed under the weight of rainwater, which also flooded tents, washed away belongings and sent families running barefoot through mud to escape rising water.
Medics said eight-month-old Rahaf Abu Jazar died of exposure after water inundated her family's tent in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave.
As the storm lingers, families who escaped bombardment now wrestle with freezing floods. Children shiver in soaked clothing. Parents have no heat, no light, and no way to call for help when phones finally shut down.
“In every detail of life, there is suffering,” Mr Abu Shanab said. “People are struggling with the simplest necessities.”
The storm swept across every governorate in Gaza. Civil defence workers, overwhelmed and under-resourced, were inundated with distress calls.
“We have been living under a weather depression that has flooded thousands of tents,” Ismail Al Thawabta, director of Gaza's government media office, told The National. “Dozens of people were transported to hospitals because of the severe cold and the lack of blankets, clothing and proper shelter.”
Entire camps, not just individual tents, were swallowed by rainwater. “Since the beginning of the storm, we have received more than 2,500 emergency calls from citizens whose tents and shelters were damaged,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal.
“We recorded the flooding of whole camps in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, the Bassa and Baraka areas in Deir Al Balah, the Central Market area in Nuseirat, and the Yarmouk and Port districts in Gaza city,” Mr Basal added. Families, including elderly and children, were swept into the freezing water.
“People are drowning,” he said. “The rain is washing away their tents despite all the humanitarian appeals we made before these tragic scenes unfolded.”
