ISTANBUL

Harsh winter weather in the Gaza Strip is compounding the suffering of civilians after more than two years of Israeli war, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Sunday.

“More rain. More human misery, despair and death,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on the US social media company X.

Gazans “are surviving in flimsy, waterlogged tents and among ruins,” he said, warning that aid supplies “are not being allowed in at the scale required.”

UNRWA “could multiply these efforts tomorrow if aid flowed in,” Lazzarini said.

Separately, the Palestinian government said Gaza needs about 200,000 prefabricated housing units to meet urgent humanitarian needs for displaced people amid severe weather conditions.

The government’s operations room said in a statement that the current weather system has flooded and blown away thousands of displacement tents across the enclave, further intensifying the humanitarian emergency in the enclave.

Gaza has been affected since Saturday by a polar low-pressure system – the third of the winter season – bringing heavy rain and strong winds.

Gaza has been struggling to survive harsh weather in recent months, as two previous weather depressions caused the deaths of 17 Palestinians, including four children, due to the collapse of already damaged buildings in Israeli bombardment and the flooding and uprooting of tens of thousands of displacement tents.

Weather conditions pose great danger to displaced Palestinians who are living in worn-out tents or severely damaged high-risk buildings, which have been under repeated Israeli strikes since October 2023.

The Israeli army has killed more than 71,200 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,200 others since October 2023 in Gaza in a brutal assault that also left the enclave in ruins.