NPA’s partner organizations are providing assistance to about 80 families who had to flee their houses due to flooding in the Gaza Valley.
In the middle of the night to February 22, Palestinian families living in the Al-Mughraqa area of the Gaza Strip were abruptly woken up when water from the Gaza Valley flooded into their houses and forced them to leave their homes.
According to local media hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes Sunday morning amid the flooding to nearby areas and were hosted in UNRWA schools and other temporary shelters.
Waheed Abed is one of the residents from Al-Muhraga area that had to escape the flooding. He said: “Rain and sewage water attacked our home in the middle of the night. Everything was ruined. Now, we are living in a critical shortage of gas and electricity”.
Through dialogue with local partners in the area, and in coordination with other actors NPA decided to proceed to provide assistance to about 80 families being most affected by the floods.
“These families had their homes, their furniture and belongings covered in the flooding water, which was not just rainwater but mixed with sewage and other polluted components. This worsened the situation and has a negative impact on the environmental and hygiene situation and creates a high risk for the people living in the area”, said Jenny Oskarsson Country Director NPA Palestine.
Together with our local partner Palestine Association for Education and Environmental Protection (PAEEP), NPA will provide the families with necessary non-food items such as hygiene kits, water tanks, lighter gas and cleaning products including disinfectants. In addition to this, the homes have been disinfected. This is highly necessary due to the negative impact the flood has had on the overall hygiene situation of the displaced families.
Mr. Rani Hmaid, Program Officer at PAEEP, thinks the assistance will have a major impact on the affected community.
“We have used different tactics to help people return to their homes as fast as possible”, he said.