Gaza sand embankment collapse on displaced families' tents kills five

Heavy rain has turned life in Gaza's tent camps into a daily struggle. On Sunday it also turned deadly: a sand embankment collapsed onto tents sheltering displaced families, killing five people, three of them children.

What happened?

Gaza's civil defence said the collapse hit a shelter site south of Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the Strip. Others were injured, and rescue teams are still searching for people missing under the debris.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal blamed the weather system that has been battering the territory since Saturday. A video shared on social media shows dozens of people at the scene. Some try to lift a large slab of stone, while others dig underneath it with shovels.

The civil defence urged residents not to pitch tents or stay near sand embankments and high mounds of earth, especially while it is raining.

How bad is the flooding?

On Saturday, the first day of the storm, the government media office said about 70,000 tents sheltering tens of thousands of displaced people had been flooded. The office is run by Hamas.

It also reported dozens of cracked walls and roofs collapsing in different parts of the Strip, causing injuries, some of them serious. Since dawn on Saturday, hundreds of displaced families have fled camps in Gaza City, central Gaza and the north after rainwater swamped them.

Mustafa Qazaat, a Gaza municipal council member and emergency committee official, said Israel has not allowed prefabricated homes to enter since the ceasefire began. He said it has only approved limited numbers of tents.

Where does this fit in?

A ceasefire mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States took effect on 10 October 2025. It ended two years of war that began after Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Many people lost their homes in that war and still live in tents. Despite the truce, the Israeli army continues air strikes and ground operations almost every day.

What's next?

Rescue work continues at the collapse site in Deir al-Balah. Warnings remain in place because the weather system is still affecting the Strip, and displaced families are being told to stay away from sand banks and earth mounds.