displaced

Palestinians call for better tents and other supplies as Israel maintains restrictions on aid to war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

Displaced Palestinians are reeling after heavy rains flooded their tents in makeshift displacement camps in Gaza City, as the United Nations warns that Israeli restrictions on aid have left hundreds of thousands of families without adequate shelter.

Abdulrahman Asaliyah, a displaced Palestinian man, told Al Jazeera on Friday that residents’ mattresses, clothes and other belongings were soaked in the flooding.

“We are calling for help, for new tents that can at least protect people from the winter cold,” he said, explaining that nearly two dozen people had been working for hours to get the water to drain from the area.

“This winter rain is a blessing from God, but there are families who no longer wish for it to fall, fearing for the lives of their children and their own survival,” Asaliyah said.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Friday’s flooding primarily affected Palestinians in the north of the Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people have returned following last month’s ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Flooding was also reported in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, said the rescue agency, which urged the international community to do more to “address the suffering” of Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in Israel’s two-year war on the enclave.

“We urge the swift delivery of homes, caravans, and tents to these displaced families to help alleviate their suffering, especially as we are at the beginning of winter,” it said in a statement.

While the October 10 ceasefire has allowed more aid to get into the Gaza Strip, the UN and other humanitarian groups say Palestinians still lack adequate food, medicine and other critical supplies, including shelter.

Aid groups working to provide shelter assistance in the occupied Palestinian territory said in early November that about 260,000 Palestinian families, totalling almost 1.5 million people, were vulnerable as the cold winter months approached.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said this week that it has enough shelter supplies to help as many as 1.3 million Palestinians.

But UNRWA said Israel continues to block its efforts to bring aid into Gaza despite the ceasefire deal, which stipulated that humanitarian assistance must be delivered to Palestinians in need.

“We have a very short chance to protect families from the winter rains and cold,” Angelita Caredda, Middle East and North Africa director at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said in a statement on November 5.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah on Friday, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Palestinians across Gaza have been voicing fears that this winter would be particularly difficult due to the lack of safe shelter.

“It only rained for a couple of minutes – 30 minutes or so … [and] they were completely flooded,” she said. “Their tents are very fragile and worn-out; they have been using them for the past two years.”

She added that most Palestinians do not have any other options but to remain in tent camps or overcrowded shelters, despite the difficulties.

“We’re already seeing Palestinian children walking barefoot. They do not have winter clothes. They do not have blankets. And at the same time, the aid that is coming in … is being restricted,” Khoudary said.

Back in Gaza City, another displaced Palestinian man affected by the heavy rains, Abu Ghassan, said he and his family “no longer have a normal life”.

“I’m lifting the mattresses so the children don’t get soaked,” he told Al Jazeera. “But the little ones were already drenched here. We don’t even have proper tents.”

The makeshift homes of displaced Palestinians in Gaza have been flooded by heavy rainfall, as millions prepare for winter in the enclave without adequate shelter or relief.

Climate-related disasters and conflict have displaced millions of people across the globe, the United Nations has warned before the opening of its annual climate change conference.

The UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a report, published on Monday to coincide with the launch of the 30th annual UN Climate Change conference (COP) in Brazil, that weather-related disasters caused about 250 million people to flee their homes over the past decade.

The migration agency issued its second major report on the effect of climate change on refugees – No Escape II: The Way Forward – in the run-up to COP 30, as it appears that the enthusiasm of countries to agree action to curb climate change continues to ebb.

“Over the past decade, weather-related disasters have caused some 250 million internal displacements – equivalent to over 67,000 displacements per day,” the report said. 

The UNHCR added that climate change is also increasing the difficulties faced by those displaced by conflict and other driving forces.

“Climate change is compounding and multiplying the challenges faced by those who have already been displaced, as well as their hosts, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings,” it continued.

Floods in South Sudan and Brazil, record heat in Kenya and Pakistan, and water shortages in Chad and Ethiopia are among the disasters noted in the report.

The number of countries facing extreme exposure to climate-related hazards is projected to rise from three to 65 by 2040.

Those 65 countries host more than 45 percent of all people currently displaced by conflict, it added.

“Extreme weather is … destroying homes and livelihoods, and forcing families – many who have already fled violence – to flee once more,” UN refugees chief Filippo Grandi said in a statement.

“These are people who have already endured immense loss, and now they face the same hardships and devastation again. They are among the hardest hit by severe droughts, deadly floods and record-breaking heatwaves, yet they have the fewest resources to recover,” he said.

By 2050, the report reads, the hottest 15 refugee camps in the world – in The Gambia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Senegal and Mali – are projected to experience nearly 200 days of hazardous heat stress per year.

Weakening commitment

The refugee agency’s report emphasised that while the effect of climate change is growing, the commitment towards dealing with it has been weakening.

The UNHCR hopes to reawaken efforts to fight the effects at the conference in Brazil.

Under President Donald Trump, the United States, traditionally the world’s top donor, has slashed foreign aid.

Washington previously accounted for more than 40 percent of the UNHCR’s budget. Other major donor countries have also been tightening their belts.

“Funding cuts are severely limiting our ability to protect refugees and displaced families from the effects of extreme weather,” Grandi said.

“To prevent further displacement, climate financing needs to reach the communities already living on the edge,” he said. “This COP must deliver real action, not empty promises.”

About 50,000 participants from more than 190 countries will meet in Belem, in the Amazon rainforest, to discuss curbing the climate crisis.

One topic on the agenda exposing the difficulties of agreeing on global action is the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

The policy is designed to prevent “carbon leakage” by requiring importers of carbon-intensive goods like steel and cement to pay the same price for embedded emissions that EU producers face domestically.

While the EU promotes CBAM as a necessary environmental tool to encourage greener practices, critics of the policy, including major trading partners like the US and China, view it as a veiled act of protectionism.

Developing nations, meanwhile, are concerned that it unfairly shifts the financial burden of climate action onto them.

Nearly 1.3 million members of the security forces and more than 26,500 internally displaced people are eligible to vote ahead of Tuesday’s polls.

Members of Iraq’s security forces and its internally displaced population have begun casting their ballots in the parliamentary elections – the sixth since a United States-led invasion toppled longtime ruler Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Polls opened at 7am (04:00 GMT) on Sunday for 1.3 million members of the security forces at 809 polling centres and will close at 6pm (15:00 GMT) before they are deployed for security purposes on the election day on Tuesday.

More than 26,500 internally displaced people are also eligible for early voting on Sunday across 97 polling stations at 27 places in Iraq, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) said.

Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari told INA that the special voting process is advancing “smoothly and in an organised manner”.

Nearly 21 million Iraqis are eligible to vote on Tuesday across 4,501 polling stations nationwide, the INA said.

More than 7,750 candidates, nearly a third of them women, are running for the 329-seat parliament. Under the law, 25 percent of the seats are reserved for women, while nine are allocated for religious minorities.

The current parliament began its term on January 9, 2022, and will last four years, ending on January 8, 2026.

An old electoral law, revived in 2023, will apply to the ongoing elections, with many seeing it as favouring larger parties. While about 70 independents won in the 2021 vote, only 75 independents are contesting this year.

Observers also fear that turnout might dip below the record low of 41 percent in 2021, reflecting voters’ apathy and scepticism in a country marked by entrenched leadership and allegations of mismanagement and endemic corruption.

There were widespread accusations of corruption and vote-buying before the elections, and 848 candidates were disqualified by election officials, sometimes for obscure reasons, including insulting religious rituals or members of the armed forces.

Past elections in Iraq have been marred by violence, including assassinations of candidates, attacks on polling stations, and clashes between the supporters of different blocs. While overall levels of violence have subsided, a candidate was assassinated in the run-up to this year’s election.

Influential Shia leader Moqtada Sadr urged his followers to boycott what he described as a “flawed election”.

Al-Sadr’s bloc won the largest number of seats in 2021, but later withdrew after failed negotiations over forming the government amid a standoff with rival Shia parties. He has since boycotted the political system.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, elected in 2022 with the backing of pro-Iran parties, is seeking a second term and is expected to secure a sizeable bloc.

Among the other frontrunners are influential Shia figures, including former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Muslim scholar Ammar al-Hakim.

By convention in post-invasion Iraq, a Shia Muslim holds the powerful post of the prime minister and a Sunni of the parliament’s speaker, while the largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd.