Gaza’s beaches are no longer suitable for day trips. Tens of thousands of people are now forced to live on the coast, forced to leave their homes during the war.
In recent days, they have come under a new kind of attack: winter seas battering their flimsy, makeshift dwellings.
“There was nothing left in the tent: no mattresses, no bedding, no bread, everything was taken away. The sea took him,” says Mohammed al-Halabi in Deir al-Balah.
“We rescued a two-month-old baby who was pulled into the sea.”
Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now displaced, and nine out of ten of those living in shelters live in tents, according to the UN.
Due to the drop in temperature, many people fell ill. Rainwater and sewage floods have occurred.
“My children’s feet, their heads – everything is freezing,” Shaima Issa told the BBC in Khan Yunis. “My daughter has a temperature due to a cold. Essentially, we live outside, surrounded by strips of fabric. Everyone here is sick and coughing.”
“When it rains on us, we get wet,” adds her neighbor Salwa Abu Nimer, crying. “We are being flooded with heavy rain and we have no waterproof covering. The water is leaking into the tent, our clothes are wet.’
“No flour, no food, no drink, no shelter,” she continued. “What kind of life am I living? I’m going to the end of the world just to feed my children.”
