GENEVA — The UN children's agency UNICEF said on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, that Israel had rejected the importation of equipment needed to repair a water basin in Gaza, and warned that the facility could overflow and endanger nearby residents through flooding and disease, Reuters reported from a press briefing in Geneva.

Source: Reuters via Duke FM

The damaged facility is the Sheikh Radwan stormwater basin in Gaza City, which is now contaminated with sewage and at risk of overflowing after heavy rainfall, according to UNICEF's James Elder. He told reporters the agency had been working with Israeli authorities and US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace for a year on a $3 million plan to repair it — $3 million, yaani about 30 lakh dollars — but that COGAT, the Israeli military agency overseeing humanitarian affairs in Gaza, had rejected the project in the past few days.

Source: Reuters via Duke FM

"Toxic sewage could flow into the streets and tents of Gaza City, forcing children and families from their makeshift homes once more, and grossly increasing the threat of disease. So we're a bit baffled," Elder told the briefing. He said COGAT had cited security grounds, in an apparent reference to strict Israeli rules regulating the entry of items that could be used for either civilian or military purposes by Hamas.

WHO warns of disease risk as tents flood

World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said at the same Geneva briefing that there were significant communicable disease risks in Gaza due to flooding, poor sanitation and insufficient health and water services, and that nearly 1 million displaced people across Gaza now faced medium or high flood risk. This week, heavy rain has already flooded tens of thousands of tents housing displaced Palestinians crammed into encampments across the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.

The basin warning follows the weekend storm that flooded displacement camps across Gaza, which Trump's Board of Peace had already called an immediate humanitarian emergency. Read: Board of Peace calls Gaza flooding an emergency

In its own statement issued on Monday, November 9, UNICEF said the heavy rains had directly affected more than 106,000 people, damaging or destroying shelters, latrines and belongings, and that an estimated 950,000 displaced people live in flood-exposed areas — including 400,000 people in locations at extremely high risk, almost half of them children. No wastewater treatment plant in Gaza is currently operational, UNICEF said, and at Sheikh Radwan only two of the basin's six pumps still work; the agency said it had been seeking approval from Israeli authorities for more than a year to bring in the equipment needed to repair the facility.

Source: UNICEF press release, Nov 9, 2026

UNICEF said it and its partners were distributing tarpaulins, winter clothing, blankets and hygiene supplies, clearing blocked sewers and stormwater basins and installing sandbags at vulnerable sites, and that in the past week alone it had reached at least 10,000 children with winter clothing and thermal blankets and cleared sewage and stormwater at more than 50 locations. It urgently called on the Israeli authorities to allow the immediate entry of pumps, generators, spare parts and other materials needed to repair water and sanitation infrastructure, including the Sheikh Radwan basin and the Sheikh Ejleen Wastewater Treatment Plant, and appealed for funding for its US$97.5 million winter response — $97.5 million, yaani about 9.75 crore dollars.

What happens next: some 1.7 million displaced people in Gaza are still living in tents, makeshift shelters or damaged buildings exposed to flooding, cold and collapse, UNICEF said, with the worst of winter yet to come. Whether Israel reconsiders the repair equipment — and whether the Board of Peace, which worked on the plan for a year, presses the case publicly — will decide whether the Sheikh Radwan basin is fixed before the next heavy rain.