At least five people, including three children, have lost their lives this Sunday after a sand dune collapsed onto several tents for displaced people located south of the town of Deir al Balá, in the central area of the Gaza Strip.
Among the dead there is also a woman and six injured people have been recorded, some in very serious condition, according to the Palestinian newspaper "Filastín".
The deceased have been identified as Salá Nabhan, Mariam Nabhan, Reem, Ibrahim and Habiba al Zein, members of two families. Rescue teams continue search efforts in view of the possibility that there may be more missing people under the sand.
This incident further worsens the already critical humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, marked by Israeli restrictions on the entry of products and humanitarian aid and made worse by the heavy rains of recent days, which have caused flooding in different parts of the enclave.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamás), which exercises control in the Palestinian territory, has blamed Israel as "entirely responsible" for the collapse of the dune, linking it to the imposed blockade, the ban on introducing reconstruction materials, and the veto on new construction.
"More than two million Palestinians are concentrated in less than one third of the total area of the Gaza Strip and this has dangerous consequences", the Islamist movement has argued, warning of the growing risk to the overcrowded population in improvised camps.