Adding to the displacement and hardships is winter and the harsh weather conditions faced by the Palestinians in Gaza..

Strong wind and heavy rain in Gaza on Wednesday night had resulting in tents being torn and flooded, leaving displaced Gazans without clothing or shelter, directly exposed to the cold

At a tent camp in Rafah, located on sandy ground littered with rubbish, people struggled to recover from a horrific night, carrying buckets of sand to cover puddles inside or just outside their tents, while hanging up their wet clothes.

Some families have proper tents, but others make do with tarps or thin, clear plastic made to protect goods, not to provide shelter to people. Many tents have no layers of soil, so people spent the night huddled in wet sand.

“It’s torn and the water is pouring over us. We were soaked,” said Ramadan Mohandad, a middle-aged man trying to build his family’s shelter with strips of plywood and a thin plastic sheet.

“We tried as much as we could to protect ourselves to keep water out, but the rain came in… This plastic does not protect the people sleeping under it,” he said.

Tears were visible in other families’ plastic shelters, and some showed puddles inside. A family had placed a concrete block at the entrance to act as a barrier of sorts, as well as smaller bricks inside that looked like steps.

Yasmin Mahani said she woke up in the night to find her youngest child, who is seven months old, wet. Her family of five shares a single blanket after their home was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike and they lost one of the children, as well as all their belongings.

“Our house was destroyed, our child was killed and I’m still dealing with it all. This is the fifth place we’ve had to move, going from one place to another with nothing but a T-shirt,” he said.

Fear of displacement in Egypt

Rafah, next to the border with Egypt, is the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, where people are arriving in increasing numbers to seek refuge from the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, which is now raging in both the north and the south.

Inas, a 38-year-old mother of five, said that she and her family they have been forced to flee four times since the war begans – first from the Tuam area in northern Gaza City to the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and then to the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, then to Khan Younis town and now to Rafah.

The family previously owned a five-story house and a supermarket, which have been completely destroyed, he said.

“I hope the war ends and the Israeli occupation forces not to invade Rafah. The possibility of displacement to Egypt scares me,” he said, expressing a common fear among Gazans.

“This is our worst nightmare. Will they extend the ground war to Rafah? If this happens, where should we go? At sea or at Sinai?’ she said, referring to Egypt’s vast desert area south of Gaza and Israel.

“We call on the world to stop Israel. We don’t want to leave Gaza,” he said.

Israel denies it plans to push Palestinians into the Sinai, while Egypt has said it does not want a mass influx of people from Gaza.

However, the Gaza-Egypt border fence has been breached in the past, fueling fears that an uncontrolled movement could occur again this time.

More than 85% of the total population are displaced

Nearly 1.9 million people, more than 85% of the enclave’s total population, have been displaced since the start of the war, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

More than 1.1 million have taken refuge in facilities in central and southern Gaza, including Khan Younis and Rafah, UNRWA said.

Most fled their homes with only a few clothes on their backs, civilians and aid workers told CNN. Others who took some belongings say they abandoned them due to exhaustion during the journey on foot from northern Gaza to the south.