Top News

Gaza: Heavy winter rains have turned large parts of the Gaza Strip into a flooded wasteland, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians facing yet another humanitarian crisis just two months into a hard-won ceasefire. Makeshift tents are collapsing under the weight of water, roads have become rivers, and families who survived fifteen months of war now watch their few remaining possessions float away.

The United Nations estimates that more than 800,000 people remain acutely vulnerable to flooding. Most are still living in tents or damaged buildings with no proper drainage, electricity, or sanitation. In northern Gaza City, entire camps have been submerged overnight, forcing residents to wade through knee-deep water carrying children and whatever belongings they can salvage.

Life Inside a Soaked Tent

Ghadir al-Adham, a mother of six, lives in one of those tents. Water seeps constantly through the seams and pools on the plastic sheet that serves as a floor. “We are living in humiliation,” she says, her voice breaking. “We begged for caravans, for anything better than this. We just want solid walls and a roof that doesn’t leak when it rains.” Like hundreds of thousands of others, her family is still waiting for the reconstruction that was promised once the guns fell silent.

Why the Peace Process Is Frozen

The ceasefire that began in late 2024 is technically holding, but Gaza remains split by what Israeli officers now openly call a “new border line.” The territory is divided into Israeli-controlled zones in the south and east, and Hamas-administered pockets in the center and north. Reconstruction, governance reforms, and the disarmament of militant groups, all supposed to start in “Phase Two” of the U.S.-brokered deal, have not even begun.

The immediate roadblock is one missing Israeli hostage: police officer Ran Gvili, taken on October 7, 2023, from kibbutz Alumim. Despite multiple searches through Gaza’s mountains of rubble, his body has not been located. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly declared that Israel will not move to the next phase until every hostage, living or dead, is returned.

Ran’s parents, Talik and Itzik Gvili, still drive past yellow ribbons on the road to their home in southern Israel. “They know exactly where he is,” Itzik says of Hamas. “They’re keeping him as their last card.” Hamas officials reject the accusation and insist Israel is simply looking for excuses to avoid implementing the agreement.

Domestic Politics on Both Sides

Many Israeli analysts believe Netanyahu faces intense domestic pressure not to withdraw troops or allow major reconstruction while even a single hostage remains unaccounted for. At the same time, Hamas leaders have little incentive to surrender weapons and governing power when they still control significant territory and can portray themselves as resisting occupation.

Retired Major General Israel Ziv, former head of the IDF Operations Directorate, puts it bluntly: “Right now, strangely enough, Israel and Hamas share an interest in delaying Phase Two. One side doesn’t want to give up control, the other doesn’t want to explain to its public why soldiers are pulling back before total victory.”

The Disarmament Dilemma

The core challenge of the next phase is finding a formula for neutralizing Hamas’s military wing that both sides, and the international community, can accept. Without a credible disarmament mechanism, no Arab or Western country is willing to deploy troops to stabilize Gaza, and no serious reconstruction funding will flow.

Netanyahu has expressed deep skepticism this week about any foreign force replacing the IDF. “Our American friends want an international mechanism,” he said. “We’ll see what they can actually achieve. Some tasks only our soldiers can do.”

Washington’s Push and Temporary Housing Controversy

President Donald Trump, who takes personal credit for the ceasefire and for pushing the plan through the UN Security Council, appears impatient. He has announced he will reveal a high-profile “Board of Peace” for Gaza early in 2026 and continues to press both parties to move faster.

Under quiet U.S. pressure, Israeli engineering units have reportedly begun clearing rubble in the southern Rafah area under IDF control to make room for tens of thousands of prefabricated housing units. The catch: Palestinians would have to cross into the Israeli-held zone and undergo strict security screening. A small number have already done so, moving to camps run by local factions aligned with Israel.

Many displaced Gazans, even those deeply opposed to Hamas rule, say they will never accept living under direct Israeli administration. “Better to stay in a flooded tent than move to what feels like an open-air prison run by the army that destroyed our homes,” one Deir al-Balah resident told reporters.

A Territory at Risk of Permanent Division

As winter storms continue and the peace process remains stuck, the physical and political fragmentation of Gaza deepens. Flooded camps in the north, new Israeli-controlled enclaves in the south, and a shrinking middle ground where neither side fully governs, this is not the “day after” anyone envisioned when the ceasefire was signed.

Aid workers warn that another harsh warning: if major drainage works, temporary shelter, and a clear political path forward do not materialize within weeks, the next storm system, expected just after the New Year, could bring an even greater disaster.

For families like Ghadir al-Adham’s, huddled under leaking canvas while the rain falls, the promised new beginning feels further away than ever.