An Unnatural Disaster

On January 18 and then again on January 25, 2010, the Gaza Strip was pounded by torrential rains that led to flash flooding, which left 12 Palestinians severely injured, over 100 houses uninhabitable and thousands of animals dead. “It hit us when the dark started,” said Nuzha al Rash, a resident of the town of al Mughraqa. “I woke up my children and hurried them out, and saw lots of people running and shouting. The only thing I could think about was to run away with my children and husband.” The waters in al Mughraqa reached nine feet in depth, killing all of the al Rash family’s livestock. They, like many of their neighbors, derived their livelihoods from their livestock. Fayez, Nuzha’s husband, told the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), “Now I have no idea how I am going to feed my children or provide for their basic needs.” 

The floods hit low-lying towns and villages all up and down the Gaza Strip, as well as in Israel and Egypt. According to the BBC, seven people were killed in the region during the first round of flooding. In al-Mughraqa alone, at least 70 homes were completely submerged. Nabil al-Qeshawi, whose home south of Gaza City was destroyed, told Maan News that the incident was terrifying and unexpected. “Everything was normal, there were winds and rains in the area, but we dealt with them as usual. Suddenly we heard a warning message being broadcast from the mosque, but we could hardly hear it through the rain.” The government put its security forces to work throughout that first night, evacuating those areas that had not yet been hit and rescuing residents of towns that already were. Upon surveying the damages on January 19, the government declared a state of emergency throughout the entire Gaza Strip.

These heavy rains and the flooding that they produced were yet another blow to a people already enduring one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history.  The very day that the flood waters first began to fall, Amnesty International (AI) released a new report entitled “Suffocating: The Gaza Strip Under Israeli Blockade.” In it, AI profiled individuals and families attempting to rebuild their lives after Israel’s December 2009/January 2010 attack on Gaza without the help of building materials, sufficient health care or adequate supplies of food, all caused by Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza. AI concluded that the siege constitutes collective punishment against this civilian population of 1.4 million people, an act illegal under international law.  On January 22, 54 members of the United States House of Representatives submitted a letter to President Obama warning against the same. The letter, penned by Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), stated that Israel must address its concerns without engaging in “de facto collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip,” which, they said, the restrictions on Gaza represented.

While Israeli restrictions did not cause the heavy rains, they have made the effects of the flooding substantially more pronounced. In the town of Beit Lehiya, many families have been living in makeshift tents for over a year. While a solidly constructed home may have been able to withstand the flooding, these temporary dwellings could not and, for the second time in just over a year, the families of the village have been forced to turn to aid agencies to meet their most basic of needs.  These agencies, however, were already struggling to meet the needs of a population besieged.  The result is a network of humanitarian organizations ill-equipped to provide for the population that it serves, helping to turn what would have been relatively routine flooding into an unnatural disaster.