A large number of tents belonging to displaced Palestinians caught fire in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood after the Israeli army carried out a strike on Tuesday evening against a workshop and tents where displaced people were staying, in a new breach of the ceasefire.
Footage of the strike showed at least two missiles hitting the site and causing a powerful explosion, while Palestinians rushed to put out the flames as they spread to nearby tents.
Video of an Israeli strike on Gaza on Tuesday evening shows an orange glow from an explosion lighting up the street, followed by burning shrapnel flying over tents and destroyed buildings.
A displaced man whose tent burned down said through tears: “Where am I supposed to go now? I have lost everything. There is no tent, nothing. I swear I am exhausted. Our belongings and our children’s belongings are gone.”
The strike on the workshop and tents killed three people, bringing to seven the number of people killed in Israeli attacks on various parts of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, according to Anadolu Agency.
Rain floods thousands of tents
The strike came just days after a weather system hit the Gaza Strip. The United Nations said more than 200,000 people were affected by rain that fell on Gaza over the weekend.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its report on the rains that more than 26,000 families had been affected by midnight on 7 November, while more than 6,000 family shelters had been completely destroyed and 17,400 others damaged. More than 3,900 families were left homeless.
The report said a sand dune collapsed onto tents near Al-Baraka pond, killing five displaced people, including three children and two women. It also noted reports that an infant had drowned at one of the displacement sites. Around 1.4 million people, or roughly 65% of the Gaza Strip’s population, are living in tents or temporary shelters.
Tents stranded outside Gaza
OCHA warned that stocks of tents, plastic sheeting and blankets inside Gaza were nearly depleted, while more than 150,000 tents were waiting outside the Gaza Strip. These included around 117,000 tents from the Egyptian Relief Committee in Al-Arish, along with 300,000 plastic sheets and 500,000 blankets. The office attributed the difficulty of responding to Israeli restrictions on the entry of supplies and equipment, as well as a lack of funding.
Photos: Anadolu Agency. Video: Social media
