Wintry, wet Gaza awaits ceasefire progress
Barefoot children play in the cold sand as thousands of displaced people in Gaza prepare shabby tents for another round of winter rain.
Some families in the central town of Deir al-Balah said they had been living in tents for much of the war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated the area.
“We have been living in this tent for two years. Every time it rains and the tent collapses on our heads, we try to erect new pieces of wood,” said Shaima Wadi, a mother of four displaced from Jabaliya in the north.
“With how expensive everything has become and we don’t have any income, we can barely afford clothes for our kids or beds for them to sleep on.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, said dozens of people, including a two-week-old baby, died of hypothermia or when war-damaged homes collapsed due to weather conditions. Aid organizations have called for more shelters and other humanitarian aid to be allowed into the region.
Emergency officials warned people not to stay in damaged buildings. But with much of the area reduced to rubble, there is little escape from the rain.
“I collect nylon, cardboard and plastic from the streets to keep warm,” said Ahmad Wadi, who burns the materials or uses them as blankets for his family.
“They don’t have the right covers. It’s freezing, the humidity is high and water is leaking everywhere. I don’t know what to do.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit Washington in the coming days as negotiators and others discuss the second phase of a ceasefire that took effect on October 10.
While the agreement is mostly valid, its progress has slowed. The remains of the last hostage taken during the Hamas-led attack that sparked the war on October 7, 2023, are still in Gaza.
Challenges in the next phase of the ceasefire include the deployment of an international stabilization force, a technocratic governing body for Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and the further withdrawal of Israeli troops from the region.
Both Israel and Hamas accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that 414 Palestinians have died and 1,142 Palestinians have been injured since the ceasefire came into force. It was stated that the bodies of 679 people were removed from the rubble in the same period, as the ceasefire made it safer to search for the remains of people previously killed.
The ministry said on Saturday that 29 bodies had been brought to local hospitals, including 25 recovered from under the rubble in the past 48 hours.
The total number of Palestinian deaths in the Israel-Hamas war has risen to at least 71,266, with 171,219 people injured, the ministry said.
The ministry, which does not discriminate between militants and civilians in its census, is staffed by medical experts and keeps detailed records that are generally considered reliable by the international community.
Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that a military operation was continuing in a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a day after police said a Palestinian attacker rammed his car into a man and then stabbed a young woman, killing them both, in northern Israel on Friday afternoon.
In the statement, it was stated that the army surrounded the town of Kabatiya, where Katz said the attacker came from, and operated there “by force”. The attacker was shot and wounded in Afula, authorities said Friday. He was taken to a hospital.
