Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has condemned Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza, as heavy rain floods displacement camps across the territory and leaves hundreds of thousands of people facing cold, hunger and rising water.
In a statement posted on X on Monday, Sharif described the scenes from Gaza as heartbreaking: tents swamped by rainwater, children with nowhere to go, and families trapped in freezing conditions without enough food.
FAKTA
- The floods: Heavy rain has flooded about 70,000 tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza. Water has reached up to 1.5 metres deep in some residential areas.
- People affected: Around 350,000 displaced people have been hit by the flooding, according to reports from the territory.
- Emergency declared: Gaza’s Civil Defence has declared its highest level of emergency as the rain continues.
- Pakistan’s response: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed the Foreign Ministry to explore every channel to increase and speed up aid deliveries to Gaza.
- The wider warning: The United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands of displaced families lack safe shelter and supplies to protect them from the cold.
Rain swamps tents across Gaza
The downpour has turned large parts of Gaza’s displacement camps into standing water. Families who fled their homes during the war are living in makeshift tents that offer almost no protection against the weather, and thousands of those shelters are now soaked through or completely underwater.
Children are among the worst affected. With temperatures falling and food in short supply, many are spending the nights in wet clothes and flooded tents, and aid workers warn the cold and damp will bring a new wave of illness unless dry shelter and blankets reach the camps quickly.
Gaza’s Civil Defence said it had raised its alert to the highest level as the rain kept falling, and the United Nations has cautioned that hundreds of thousands of displaced families have no safe place to ride out the winter storms.
Sharif demands faster aid
Sharif said the flooding had exposed how little protection Gaza’s displaced families have. In his post, he condemned what he called violations of the ceasefire and of international law, and urged the international community to act.
The prime minister directed Pakistan‘s Foreign Ministry to use every available channel to raise the volume of humanitarian assistance and to get it into Gaza faster. He said relief had to reach the families who needed it most, above all children facing hunger and freezing conditions.
Ceasefire under strain
The flooding has also sharpened the argument over aid access. Hamas has blamed the destruction on Israel’s blockade and restrictions, while aid agencies report that far too little food, shelter material and medicine is getting through.
The ceasefire remains fragile, and the winter weather is adding a new emergency on top of the war’s destruction. Unless shelter and supplies arrive in much larger quantities, relief groups warn, the flooding will keep driving the crisis deeper.
