The rain hasn't even properly started, and Gaza is already drowning in dread. Families across the strip are facing a brutal choice this winter: ride out the storms in war-battered apartment blocks that could come down on top of them, or huddle in tents that are already taking on water. Neither option is safe. Both are all some people have left.

In Al-Mughraqa, west of Gaza City, residents described leaking roofs, cracked ceilings and waterlogged floors as the rainy season approaches — the fourth since the war began. "We move our mattresses there and sleep. That is the solution," resident Abdullah Siyam told Euronews, describing the one dry corner of his home. Neighbor Mariam Abu Hazein said her flooded rooms feel "as if we were in the street."

A warning written in rubble

The fear isn't abstract. On September 16, the war-damaged six-story Al-Saada building in Gaza City's Tal al-Hawa area collapsed without warning, killing 21 people — including 11 or 12 children, depending on the count — as rescuers spent 16 hours pulling survivors from the wreckage. Residents had reportedly been warned the structure was unstable but stayed because there was nowhere else to go. Gaza's civil defense agency said it fielded roughly 150 distress calls about dangerous buildings in the 24 hours after the collapse, according to Arab News.

The UN's humanitarian office estimates more than 4,000 damaged buildings across Gaza now need full or partial demolition — and more than 2,300 of them, housing nearly 44,000 people, are still occupied because there is nowhere else to put the families inside. Civil defense officials in Gaza City put the number of buildings at risk of collapse at over 2,000.

"PEOPLE HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO."

That line, from Gaza City Civil Defense director Raed Al-Dahshan, sums up a crisis aid officials increasingly call man-made. A Norwegian Refugee Council assessment in June found 71% of families living in damaged buildings simply can't afford repair materials — and prices are climbing anyway. Tarpaulin at the Deir al-Balah market has jumped from roughly 120 to 180 shekels (about €35 to €53), while a basic dome tent now runs 1,300 to 1,700 shekels (€384 to €502).

Relief is bottlenecked. Israeli authorities approved nearly 37,000 pieces of timber and 660 emergency shelter kits for entry in August, then blocked the shipment days later, and a renewed UN request was also turned down. COGAT, the Israeli agency overseeing aid into Gaza, says heavy machinery and reconstruction materials won't be allowed in until Hamas disarms, accusing the group of diverting aid — a claim Hamas denies. As of mid-September, the UN's Shelter Cluster had received just 26% of the $193.7 million it says it needs.

UN humanitarian coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov has pressed for rescue gear, fuel, tents and tarpaulins to move within weeks, not months. Meanwhile, surveyors have flagged 217 displacement sites — home to roughly 235,000 people — as facing medium-to-high flood risk once the rain really sets in. "Honestly, we really do not want winter to come," resident Mohammed Bardawil said. Few in Gaza have the luxury of being ready for it either way.