Displaced families scooped muddy water from their makeshift tents on Tuesday, trying to save their remaining belongings after heavy rain hit central Gaza.

Palestinians living in cities of tents have been left reeling from downpours and flooding as they struggle to cope with ongoing food shortages and a fragile ceasefire tested by ongoing strikes in Gaza.

On Tuesday morning, Reham al-Hilu was among the displaced people assessing the damage in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, where hundreds have sought refuge.

The wood and metal structure she was living in collapsed from the power of the rain overnight, and she said she was injured.

“All the wood and metal collapsed over our heads,” she said. “Rainwater flooded the mattresses."

Nearby roads turned into rivers of murky water.

One man waded through the current to carry his two daughters across the street.

Aid organizations worry that winter rains will make a stark humanitarian situation worse, and have scrambled to mitigate floods and prepare infrastructure already devastated by war from extreme weather.

Nearly all of Gaza’s over 2 million people were forced out of their homes during more than two years of war.

Many have been living in tents or shelters, some of them built over their destroyed homes, with no proper toilet or sewage facilities.

They depend on small cesspits dug near their tents, which overflow in heavy rainfall.

The United Nations' Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report last week that the downpours have flooded at least thousands of those tents, and that the weather has “destroyed what little shelter and belongings thousands of Palestinians in Gaza had left.”

But the agency said that the humanitarian assistance trickling into Gaza is far short of what they need, and called on Israel to lift remaining restrictions on aid.

AP video produced by Wafaa Shurafa