Three children and a woman were killed when a rain-soaked sandbank collapsed onto tents at a displacement camp in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Sunday evening, Al Jazeera reported. Survivors described neighbours digging by hand to reach families buried beneath the sand.

The collapse at Ard al-Ribat camp came during storms that flooded displacement sites across Gaza. Heavy rain directly affected 106,000 people, according to UNICEF figures cited by Al Jazeera, submerging thousands of tents and causing latrines to overflow into camps.

Among those killed were eight-year-old Salah al-Nabhan, his six-year-old sister Maryam and their mother, Tahrir, 36, who was five months pregnant. Al Jazeera reported that their father, Ahmed, who had recently been released from Israeli detention, was the family’s sole survivor.

In a neighbouring tent, four-year-old Habiba al-Zein was killed. Her mother, Reem, and brother Ibrahim remained in intensive care, the report said.

Zahira al-Sahar, 58, told Al Jazeera she was lying in her tent when the sand struck, burying her up to her neck and almost completely covering her 28-year-old daughter. Her sons pulled her daughter free first, at her request, before returning to rescue her.

Residents lacked excavation equipment and searched with their hands and whatever tools they could find. After dark, they used mobile-phone flashlights. Neighbour Suhaib Abu Darabi said rescuers found two tents completely buried and that the scale of the collapse exceeded what residents could manage with their limited resources.

Shaima al-Daour, a nurse living in the camp, described trying unsuccessfully to resuscitate a young child. She also helped a 15-year-old boy breathe, then appealed for a tuk-tuk, cart or other transport to take him to hospital because no ambulance was readily available.

The storm began on November 6. By November 8, more than 26,000 households had reported damage to shelters or belongings, according to UN humanitarian office figures cited in the report. The UN estimated that 1.4 million people were living in tents or makeshift shelters when the storms hit.

Al Jazeera reported that damaged drainage networks, poor roads and shortages of municipal equipment hampered the response. Aid organisations have called for shelter materials and repair equipment to enter Gaza to help prevent further deaths.

Sources