A heatwave in a miserable tent in Gaza: ‘I dream of a glass of cold water’

It is 9.00 a.m. and the temperature in Al Mawasi, a coastal area in the southern Gaza Strip where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are crowded together, has already climbed above 30 degrees Celsius (86ºF).

“But the humidity makes it feel hotter, and you can’t stand being inside the tent during the day, because we literally melt,” says Hajar al Ghoul, a 30-year-old teacher.

Her tools for coping with the heat are a plastic plate she uses as a fan and a makeshift shower built by her family, consisting of a rudimentary enclosure made of wood and plastic where they pour a bucket of water over themselves. That is, when they are lucky and humanitarian tanker trucks reach the area and deliver water.

“Also, you have to choose whether to use the water in the morning to start the day feeling clean or at night to try to sleep a little better, because we have very few liters,” she tells this newspaper by phone.

There is no electricity in Gaza either, and having a working fan or refrigerator is a distant dream for these families, who fled their homes to save their lives and have been living in tents since.

“I don’t know where to start complaining. The lack of water? The heat? The power cuts? The mosquitoes and rats that are multiplying this summer?” asks Ahmed Abu Fayed from Nuseirat, in central Gaza.

“This is hell. I dream of opening a refrigerator door and drinking a glass of cold water, of trading the tent for a real room with a concrete roof. But I have lost all hope. I will only find peace in my grave,” adds the father of three, one of whom has a severe skin problem due to the dire hygiene conditions in which they are living.

“I’m ashamed to send a photo of what we call a bathroom,” Abu Fayed admits.

The U.N. estimates that 90% of the Gaza Strip’s energy infrastructure was destroyed by Israeli bombings that began in October 2023 in response to attacks by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli territory.

“Hospitals and small desalination plants run on generators, but there is no oil to keep them running and the parts needed to repair broken generators are not getting in,” says Samir Zaqut, from the Palestinian NGO Al Mezan, speaking from Gaza.

A heatwave without power outlets

With a scrap of cardboard, 53-year-old Khamis Ohman fans his young daughter, who is cradled in his wife’s arms. It is the third summer they have spent in a tent in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza.

“We spend the day sweating and suffering from headaches from the heat,” he laments. “What kind of life is this? With barely any food, little water and no work? Summer is supposed to be enjoyed, but there is nothing to do here.”

Al Ghoul, Abu Kmail and the Gazans interviewed by phone for this report cannot help responding with a mix of irony and anger when discussing reports of high temperatures across Europe.

“These tents are full of insects and sand. In Europe they talk about their heatwaves, but they have apartments with air conditioning and fans. They have forgotten about us,” laments 53-year-old Fatima Salim Hamdou from Deir al Balah.

“A heatwave with power outlets isn’t really a heatwave,” Al Ghoul adds.

The teacher recalls that in her apartment in Gaza City, she and her husband, Osama, had electric fans; when the heat became intense, they would lower the blinds, and at night they would open the windows to let in the sea breeze.

“Now I think that place was a palace,” she says.

Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007, when Hamas took control of the small Palestinian territory, and restrictions on movement together with recurring outbreaks of violence have shaped everyday life for its residents.

Al Ghoul had to leave her home at the end of 2023 and has never been able to return because it is practically destroyed.

“We haven’t changed the tent tarpaulins in about two years and the sun practically shines through them,” she says. “Most of us are like this. People literally chase shade during the day outside the tent to find a little relief.”

According to the United Nations, 850,000 people in Gaza are in urgent need of housing or improved shelter, as more than 76% of the Gaza Strip’s homes have been either completely or partially destroyed. Since the ceasefire came into effect in October, the volume of humanitarian aid entering Gaza has increased, but needs continue to far exceed the quantities authorized by Israel, which still maintains military control over 58% of the territory’s 365 square kilometers (140 square miles). Israeli attacks have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians since 2023. Humanitarian organizations say Gaza is facing shortages of virtually everything: medicines, pipes, excavators and reconstruction materials, drinking water, fuel, toilets and even tarpaulins to provide protection from the sun.

“We suffer in winter and summer. It’s unbearable. I’m tired,” says 51-year-old Abu Saeed Mohamed, in a tent in Deir al Balah. The man says they have at most two liters of water per person per day and that the sea is not safe either. “The army has opened fire many times while we were bathing. Now I only go to fetch water to wash with,” he explains.

According to a study by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) conducted before this heatwave, 78% of households in the Gaza Strip already suffered moderate or severe water shortages. Some 62% of them live on less than six liters per person per day.

The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says that the heat, combined with the dire living conditions faced by most Gazans, has for months been driving a rise in skin diseases, respiratory illnesses, diarrhoea and gastroenteritis, particularly among children

Swimming lessons in the Mediterranean

“The only escape is the sea. But it is very dangerous for children who can’t swim because of the waves, the rocks and jellyfish,” says Amjed Tantesh.

A veteran teacher from Gaza, Tantesh has taught thousands of children to swim in the Strip over the past three decades and succeeded in building a professional swimming team. In recent months, he has helped set up five seawater pools at different points along Gaza’s coastline, partially covered with tarpaulins to provide shade for children attending lessons.

The war destroyed the pool where the swimming team trained in northern Gaza. But since the ceasefire came into effect, Tantesh and a team of 40 volunteers have virtually built these facilities with their own hands, creating places where children can escape both the heat and the trauma of the bombings — even if it means swimming in a polluted Mediterranean.

“The rubble helped us build barriers and create safe spaces,” he says.

Tantesh launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the project, which he named Swim with Gaza. Thanks to those donations, as well as support from NGOs and UNICEF, around 700 children are now learning to swim in Gaza while finding relief from the extreme temperatures for a few hours each day.

“For part of the day, the kids escape the heat, which in the displacement camps is atrocious, and enjoy the pleasure of plunging into the sea,” he says.