TEL AVIV, Israel — Aid officials had warned for months that torrential rains in the Gaza Strip could turn deadly this winter.
On Sunday, they buried Ahmad Nabhan’s entire family — victims of what President Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza called a “foreseeable” disaster in the crowded enclave.
The United Nations and relief workers had repeatedly said that Gaza’s 2 million Palestinian residents needed more and better supplies for a winter that many would spend — for the fourth year running — in squalid, trash-ridden camps. Floods, mud, and cold have proved deadly in years past.
On Sunday night, Nabhan, 36, stepped out to have coffee with friends in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Minutes later, the rains caused a sand embankment to collapse on his tent — burying his wife, Tahrir, 36; his son, Salah, 8; his daughter, Mariam, 5; and his niece Habiba, 4, inside, according to Gaza authorities and relatives.
“We dug through the sand and rocks, and pulled out their bodies, one by one,” Nabhan said in a phone interview.
Thousands of other Palestinians lost their shelters and belongings in the weekend storm, according to the United Nations.
The disaster underscored the misery in Gaza more than a year after a US-brokered truce ended the war there between Israel and Hamas.
Trump’s Board of Peace — which oversees the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza — issued a rare admonishment of Israel for doing too little to prevent what it called “a foreseeable humanitarian challenge.” On Monday night, the board said that Israel was considering “additional steps,” but that the response “remains insufficient.”
“We call on the leadership of the current government of Israel to act immediately to authorize and facilitate the entry of all necessary winterization and humanitarian supplies,” said the board, which includes several of Trump’s closest advisers.
Israel has said that it allowed in plenty of supplies, including tens of thousands of tents and blankets, before winter. And the Israeli military, which oversees aid to Gaza, said many more supplies had been approved but that the United Nations has not yet brought them into the enclave due to logistical and budgetary issues.
The ceasefire agreed to last October was supposed not only to end the war in Gaza that Israel launched after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, but also to usher in a new Palestinian administration and pave the way for wide-scale reconstruction. Many in Gaza, however, say little has changed for the better.
Israeli forces control at least 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, hemming Palestinians into a crowded pocket near the coast. They have also been bombarding the enclave on a near-daily basis, killing more than 1,600 people since the ceasefire went into effect, according to local health officials whose tally includes both civilians and Hamas combatants.
Hamas militants rule over the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza. A dozen or so Palestinian technocrats appointed by the Board of Peace to administer the enclave are in Egypt — and wield little influence over affairs inside Gaza.
Hopes that Gaza could soon be rebuilt have dimmed, since Israel has made Hamas laying down its arms a condition for full-scale reconstruction in the enclave. While the Palestinian militants agreed in July to a US-backed framework for decommissioning and storing weapons, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it fell short of genuine disarmament.
In the meantime, many Palestinians are living in the rubble of half-destroyed homes or in tents that are dangerously exposed to the elements, according to Pat Griffiths, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem.
“Palestinians in Gaza desperately need more sustainable, durable shelter options — to keep them safe, to keep them warm,” Griffiths said. “To have those options, more materials to create those shelters need to be able to enter Gaza.”
Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office, said in a statement that Israel had “gone beyond its obligations” to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including by making efforts to improve sanitation and purify water reservoirs.
Spielman also said the Israeli government wanted to advance Trump’s ceasefire plan, but that “Gaza cannot be rebuilt while Hamas remains armed.”
That echoed remarks from Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right Israeli finance minister, who said Tuesday that “culpability for the distress of Gaza’s residents rests solely with Hamas.”
Smotrich has previously suggested keeping conditions in Gaza miserable to encourage Palestinians to flee the enclave of their own accord. In September, Smotrich said Israel should try to “take away their hope.”
“If Gaza remains tiny, crowded, and destroyed, they will understand they have nothing to do there,” Smotrich said in a television interview at the time. “They’ll look for places to go.”
Nabhan says he himself already has lost everything: His hometown of Jabaliya has largely been razed, and now his family is no more.
“When I lost my family,” he said, “I lost my whole world with them.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.