The Gaza floods arrived with the first winter storm on 7 and 8 November, and they did exactly what everyone said they would. Rain poured into tents that were never meant to last this long. A sand hill fell onto families sleeping beside a reservoir. A baby reportedly drowned. Gaza was still bailing water out of its shelters when Isr*eli missiles hit Nasser Hospital. In the occupied West Bank, soldiers shot dead a 14-year-old boy because, in their own words, he intended to throw stones.
One week. Three stories. One message: a storm, a missile or a “plan” can end a Palestinian life, and the world still calls it a ceasefire.
Gaza Floods: Tents Were Never Shelter
The UN’s humanitarian office OCHA says a sandy hill collapsed onto tents at Al Berka Reservoir, west of Deir al-Balah. It killed five displaced people, including three children and two women. Separately, an infant reportedly drowned at another site. Some local reports put the toll from the Gaza floods even higher.
The scale of the damage is staggering:
- More than 26,000 households asked for help after their shelters or belongings were damaged.
- The storm destroyed over 6,000 family shelters and damaged around 17,400 more.
- Civil Defense received more than 2,100 distress calls, with water up to 1.5 metres deep in some places.
- About 65% of Gaza’s people, roughly 1.4 million, are living in tents or makeshift shelters, per OCHA.
This is the fourth winter since the war began that Gaza’s displaced families have spent under canvas and plastic. Last month we wrote about aid being cut for 500,000 people as winter approached. The warnings were there. Nobody acted on them.
150,000 Tents Sitting at the Border
Here is the part that should make every reader angry. According to OCHA and the UN, more than 150,000 tents sit packed and waiting outside Gaza. So do 300,000 tarpaulins and 500,000 blankets. Inside Gaza, stocks are “virtually exhausted.”
So why aren’t they in? The UN’s deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, put it simply: aid agencies just need permission from the Isr*eli authorities to get them through the checkpoints. Save the Children’s Ahmad Alhendawi said this is “not simply the result of bad weather.” He is right. Rain is natural. Keeping tents out of a flooded camp is a decision.
Nasser Hospital Hit Again
In the early hours of Thursday, 12 November, an Isr*eli strike hit Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, the largest hospital still working in southern Gaza. The strike killed at least six people, including senior surgeon Dr Rizk Abu Shaira, and wounded at least 20, according to Gaza’s health ministry and civil defence.
The hospital’s director said a missile penetrated the building vertically, badly damaging the surgery department and the intensive care unit. The Isr*eli military claimed it was targeting a commander inside the hospital. Al Jazeera’s correspondent noted this was the seventh Isr*eli strike on the complex in about two years.
Think about that. This is where the victims of the Gaza floods and the wounded go for help. Its surgeons and ICU beds came under fire during a “ceasefire.” Since the truce began on 11 October 2025, Gaza’s Health Ministry has counted more than 1,600 Palestinians killed, as we reported in The Killing Never Stopped.
Killed for “Planning” to Throw Stones
On the night of Monday, 9 November, Isr*eli forces shot dead 14-year-old Mu’taz Daghlas in Burqa, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Soldiers also wounded two other teenagers. According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, troops stopped an ambulance from reaching them and briefly held Red Crescent paramedics. They detained his father too, and the health ministry says Isr*el is withholding the boy’s body.
The Isr*eli military’s own explanation, reported by AFP, was that soldiers identified people who “intended to hurl stones” at a highway and fired “to remove the threat.”
Read that again. Not threw. Intended to. Soldiers killed a 14-year-old child for something he had not done. Irish actor Liam Cunningham summed up the outrage online, pointing out that the boy did not throw stones but only “PLANNED” to. If intentions are now a death sentence, then no Palestinian child is safe anywhere, not in Gaza’s tents and not in the West Bank’s villages.
Why the Gaza Floods Are Man-Made
Storms happen everywhere. What turns a storm into a massacre is policy: homes flattened so families live in tents, drainage and infrastructure destroyed, shelter supplies held at the border, and hospitals bombed so the injured have nowhere to go. Add soldiers who can shoot a child for what he “intended” to do, and you have a system where Palestinian lives are treated as disposable.
The world keeps calling this a ceasefire. For the families wringing out their blankets in Deir al-Balah, the surgeons buried in Khan Younis and a 14-year-old in Burqa, it was never anything of the sort.
Do you think the world will act before the next storm? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Sources: OCHA, 8 Nov 2026 · UN News, 9 Nov 2026 · Common Dreams, 9 Nov 2026 · Al Jazeera · 24NewsHD/AFP, 10 Nov 2026 · The New Arab, 12 Nov 2026