Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip live in fabric and plastic tents lacking the basic necessities of life, three years after a war that destroyed homes and changed the way people live. Extreme heat makes staying inside the tents extremely difficult during the day. The tent materials trap heat inside, turning them into intensely hot spaces that offer residents no protection from the weather.
Many displaced people are forced to leave their tents during the day, amid concerns about the effects of high temperatures on their health and families’ inability to provide suitable cooling. Their suffering is not limited to rising temperatures: tents erected as temporary shelters have become an extended daily reality for large numbers of Palestinians.
Displaced families face cramped tents and a lack of privacy
Families who lost their homes live in overcrowded places lacking privacy and basic services, including adequate water, hygiene facilities and sanitation. In a testimony published by the United Nations in May 2026, a displaced woman named Umm Ahmad, who lives with her family in a camp west of Gaza City after being displaced four times from Jabalia, said the tent did not even allow family members to stand comfortably. She described life inside it as being like a prison.
Umm Ahmad said her family had to hang food at the entrance to the tent to keep it away from rats and rodents. Before the war, she said, they had lived in a five-storey house equipped with their family’s needs, before it was destroyed and the family found itself living in the streets and tents.
She added that rainwater flooded the tent during winter and winds tore it away, forcing the family to secure it again, while clothes and bedding could not be dried. With the arrival of summer, the suffering worsened because of heat, insects and rodents, as well as the lack of privacy and the family’s overcrowding in a limited space.
Water shortages disrupt displacement sites
Water shortages further complicate life at displacement sites. The United Nations reported in May that three in four families relied on water delivered by lorries. Humanitarian partners were providing about 24,000 cubic metres of water a day through nearly 2,000 distribution points, but the continuation of the service remained dependent on the availability of fuel, generators and spare parts needed to operate the equipment.
Waste and rodents increase health risks
Humanitarian teams also observed families living in crowded tents and damaged buildings at displacement sites inside Gaza City, with limited access to clean water and an almost complete absence of sanitation services at some sites. The accumulation of waste and spread of insects and rodents increased health risks, particularly skin and infectious diseases.
The tents remain unable to provide stable protection for displaced people in different seasons: they trap heat in summer and do not withstand rain and wind in winter.
Amid the loss of homes and shortages of water and basic services, Palestinian families continue to manage their daily needs with limited means at displacement sites that have changed from temporary solutions into long-term places of residence.
