The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has expressed this Tuesday its regret over the deaths of three minors and their mother after a sandbank collapsed on the tent where they were taking refuge in the city of Deir al Balá, in the center of the Gaza Strip, following the torrential rains of the past few days, which have left more than 100,000 people affected and serious material damage.
The agency has specified that the children were four, five and eight years old and has stressed that it is estimated that around 950,000 people displaced by the Israeli offensive after the attacks of October 7, 2023 are in areas vulnerable to flooding. Among them are 400,000 people—almost half, minors—who remain in areas of extreme risk.
"These children and their mother have died because they did not have a safe place to sleep. That is the reality being lived in Gaza today," UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell has said, who has regretted that "families live without the most basic conditions to guarantee their safety, health and dignity".
Along these lines, she has warned that "more children could die if they do not have adequate shelters, water and sanitation systems that work and the necessary equipment to restore essential services". "The worst of winter is still to come," she added, according to a statement released by the agency.
UNICEF has emphasized that this episode occurs as the population of Gaza, "exhausted by the war and a prolonged crisis," faces its fourth winter in circumstances "extremely difficult," with nearly 1.7 million displaced people living in tents, makeshift shelters or damaged buildings, exposed to the cold, flooding and possible collapses.
The organization has noted that the latest floods are worsening the already serious sanitation crisis resulting from the conflict, in a context in which no wastewater treatment plant is operational. Rainwater mixed with wastewater threatens to overflow the city of Gaza’s stormwater pond.
UNICEF has recalled that it has been requesting permission for more than a year from the Israeli authorities to introduce the equipment needed to repair this facility, where only two of the six pumps are working. At the same time, it has warned that the drop in temperatures poses a mortal risk, especially for newborns, and has said that eleven children have died in 2025 from hypothermia.
Therefore, it has emphasized that although the emergency response is essential, it does not constitute a lasting solution. Accordingly, it has called on Israel to immediately authorize the entry of pumps, generators, spare parts, and other essential materials to rehabilitate the water and sanitation infrastructures.
UNICEF has also asked the international community to back its appeal to allow the entry of all life-saving humanitarian supplies and equipment and to provide urgent funding for its winter response plan in Gaza, for which it requires $97.5 million (about €86.8 million).
Criticism from Save the Children of Israel
On the other hand, the non-governmental organization Save the Children has said that the rescue teams continue to try to locate two missing people following the flooding and the aforementioned landslide, and has stressed that these deaths could have been avoided if Israel had allowed access to the necessary humanitarian aid to the enclave.
"Rain has not killed these boys and girls. They died because of man-made conditions, created by the Israeli authorities, that force families to live in unsafe and inadequate shelters with no other place to go," said the regional director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe of the NGO, Ahmad Alhendawi.
"Humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned that, without sufficient materials to build shelters or winter supplies, children would be in danger," he emphasized, before regretting that "those warnings are now being fulfilled in the most devastating way possible," according to a statement from the organization.
The NGO has reported that around 70,000 tents that housed about 350,000 Palestinians, including 210,000 minors, have been flooded in Gaza, while more than 2,000 buildings damaged by the Israeli offensive are at risk of collapsing due to persistent rains and strong winds.
"The international community cannot allow more boys and girls to die in disasters that are completely predictable. It must use its influence to ensure that Israeli authorities immediately allow the entry of tents, caravans, shelter materials and other essential humanitarian aid, so that no other family has to bury their children because of a storm," Alhendawi has stressed.