Gaza's displacement camps just went underwater and winter has barely started

Rain just flooded more than 70,000 tents in Gaza.

That's in the first 12 hours of the storm alone.

Gaza's Hamas-run government media office reported the flooding earlier today.

And Gaza's civil defence service says it got more than 1,500 distress calls overnight. All from people whose tents had flooded.

No deaths have been reported from the flooding itself.

Mahmoud Bassal is the spokesperson for Gaza's civil defence. He told Al Jazeera that some shelter sites were completely flooded. Everyone inside had to leave.

He says quote "everyone inside them has now been forced out into the unknown".

He also said his teams are working without any equipment or capabilities.

So that's Gaza's own emergency service saying it cannot cope.

Water levels in several shelter sites rose by 30 to 40 centimetres, the civil defence agency says.

Three abandoned houses collapsed. No injuries, according to civil defence.

But separately, the government media office says dozens of walls and roofs cracked and collapsed. And that caused injuries, some critical.

Those are two different accounts from two different bodies. Not one confirmed number.

At al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, the emergency department flooded. It was out of service for about four hours. That's according to Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the hospital's director.

Municipal and civil defence teams say they can't deal with the storm. Fuel is short. Equipment is damaged.

And the civil defence says Israel destroyed hundreds of vehicles during its war against Hamas, including bulldozers and water pumps. None of it has been replaced.

This is the first winter storm since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, just over a year ago.

The war itself started after Hamas-led fighters killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel three years ago.

Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began.

Israeli forces still control about two-thirds of Gaza's territory. Residents there have been ordered to leave.