DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Barefoot children played on chilly sand as Gaza 's thousands of displaced people prepared threadbare tents on Saturday for another round of winter rain.
Some families in the central town of Deir al-Balah said they had been living in tents for about two years, or for most of the war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated the territory.
Fathers braced fraying tents with old pieces of wood or inspected the ragged edges of holes torn in tarps. Inside the dim homes, daylight through tiny holes shone like stars.
Mothers battled the damp, slinging clothing over poles or cord to dry in the wind between the downpours that turn paths into puddles. One mother pulled a tiny child away from a mildewing patch of carpet.
''We have been living in this tent for two years. Every time it rains and the tent collapses over our heads, we try to put up new pieces of wood,'' said Shaima Wadi, a mother of four children who was displaced from Jabaliya in the north. ''With how expensive everything has become, and without any income, we can barely afford clothes for our children or mattresses for them to sleep on.''
Gaza's Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, has said dozens of people, including a two-week-old infant, have died from hypothermia or after weather-related collapses of war-damaged homes. Aid organizations have called for more shelters and other humanitarian aid to be allowed into the territory.
Emergency workers have warned people not to stay in damaged buildings. But with so much of the territory reduced to rubble, there are few places to escape the rain.
''I collect nylon, cardboard and plastic from the streets to keep them warm,'' said Ahmad Wadi, who burns the materials or uses them as a kind of blanket for loved ones. ''They don't have proper covers. It is freezing, the humidity is high, and water seeps in from everywhere. I don't know what to do.''
