Floods Force Gaza to Choose Between Clean Water and Pumping Out Sewage

For Hanan Saied, 46, the storm soaked the bedding and clothing she shares with her seven children. She lives in a shelter in Al Maghazi with mud walls, cracks, and plastic sheeting covering the roof, which WIRED Middle East visited.

“The house flooded, and stones and mud fell on us,” Saied says. “The bedding was soaked, and the children’s clothes were soaked.”

Her children used buckets to move water away while her eldest son tried to repair the shelter. Saied spent the night holding her daughter, Sara, who she says has asthma, trying to keep her warm.

Gaza’s Government Media Office has said at least 70,000 tents sheltering displaced Palestinians had flooded within 12 hours.

On 8 November, the Israel account on X, run by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted, “Contrary to popular belief, Israel does not control the weather.” The post did not explicitly mention Gaza floods.

The flooding comes after widespread destruction of Gaza’s housing. An April assessment by the European Union, United Nations, and World Bank found that more than 371,888 housing units had been damaged or destroyed and around 1.9 million people internally displaced, often repeatedly.

By 8 November, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 1.4 million people—65 percent of Gaza’s population—were living in tents or shelters. Humanitarian partners had received appeals from more than 26,000 households whose shelters or belongings had been damaged.

In Al Maghazi, Jawad describes five displacement sites across the camp’s western and northern areas. Parts sit on low ground where rainwater accumulates without an outlet.

His teams used pumps to move water outside the displacement sites. But the problems extend beneath the streets.

Israeli bombardment has damaged sewage manhole covers in Al Maghazi, Jawad says. Other covers have been stolen or deteriorated over time. The resulting openings allow rainwater to pour into sewage networks unable to accommodate the extra volume, causing wastewater to overflow.

“The sewage networks become unable to accommodate the quantities of sewage in addition to the rainwater that leaks into the manholes because the covers are missing,” he says.

Replacement covers are unavailable locally, while materials needed to fabricate alternatives are scarce and expensive. The municipality cannot afford all the work required. Keeping the water supply running takes priority.

“I consider spending money on maintaining wells or maintaining generators to operate water wells a higher priority than allocating some of that money to maintaining sewage manhole covers,” Jawad says.