Displaced Palestinians in Rafah sit in the shade of their tents on a 100-degree day in the Gaza Strip.
Anas Baba for NPR
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Anas Baba for NPR
Displaced Palestinians in Rafah sit in the shade of their tents on a 100-degree day in the Gaza Strip.
Anas Baba for NPR
RAFAH, Gaza Strip – During two sweltering days this week, when temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit, Mohammad Ayash’s tent became unbearable – so hot that, he said, it was like “hellfire.”
“Red hot death. It is killing us,” he said.
Like thousands of Palestinians, Ayash and his family lived for months in a modest, hand-built tent after leaving home to flee Israel’s seven-month military campaign.
But the tent Ayash pitched – a modest triangle built against a cinder-block wall, the outer walls made of blankets and cloth – was for the cold, rainy nights of Gaza’s winter, he said. To keep him and his family dry, he lined the tent walls with plastic, and the bedsheets were held in place with wooden boards nailed together.
In the heat this week, he said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, it was even hotter inside the tent than outside. “The children are falling apart. They can’t stay in the tent,” he said. “We want to take the nylon out of it, God willing.”
By Friday, the two-day heatwave had ended and temperatures had returned to the 70s. But for Palestinians and aid workers alike, the heat heralded a summer to come – in which Terrible heat will weigh daily on every aspect of what has become normal life in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Health organizations are also concerned about infectious diseases spreading faster and more widely in hot environments.
“With hot summers and high temperatures, this is creating an atmosphere for all kinds of germs and pollution,” warned Abdelrahman Al Tamimi, director general of the Authority. And of course, this is the main cause of waterborne and airborne diseases.” Palestine Hydrology Group, a non-profit organization focusing on water and health issues in the Palestinian territories.
At least one Palestinian woman has died from the heat, a worker with the global aid group Mercy Corps told NPR. Mahmoud Khwaider, an aid worker and al-Sayigh’s neighbor, said Lara al-Sayigh, 18, had received news that she would be allowed to leave Gaza. But she lost consciousness from the heat and died before reaching the border post in Rafah, Khwaider said.
At a field hospital on Thursday, a doctor poured clean water on the faces of two young girls who were crying, their eyes burning as lice medicine dripped from their scalps into their eyes from heat and sweat.
The heat is dangerous for many Palestinians who have no way to stay cool
Nowhere in Gaza is hotter than Rafah, on the territory’s southern border along the edge of the Sinai desert. In the summer, daily high temperatures average in the mid-90s. Hot days frequently reach above 100 degrees.
The United Nations says more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge here as Israel’s punitive military campaign forced people from their homes farther north.
Many people lack air conditioning, fans or regular access to drinking water. And makeshift shelters like tents give you some respite from the heat.
“We didn’t expect things to reach the point where we had to sit,” said Sharif Mazen Abu Odeh, who left his home in Beit Hanoun, a city in the far northeast corner of Gaza, shortly after October 7. until May and June, etc.” , and did not anticipate being displaced for so long.
Thousands of Palestinians took to the Mediterranean Sea to cool off on Wednesday and Thursday as temperatures topped 100 degrees in Rafah.
Anas Baba for NPR
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Anas Baba for NPR
Thousands of Palestinians took to the Mediterranean Sea to cool off on Wednesday and Thursday as temperatures topped 100 degrees in Rafah.
Anas Baba for NPR
The Israeli military’s air campaign and ground operation, a response to a Hamas-led attack on October 7 that Israel says killed 1,200 people, has left most of its population of 2.2 million Gaza’s people are displaced. Gaza health officials say more than 34,000 Palestinians have died since October 7.
Many people leave home with almost nothing but what they are wearing, let alone a full complement of winter and summer clothes. Most have been displaced multiple times, including Abu Odeh, who said he has relocated four times since October.
“May God send down a little mercy from Himself to cool the weather,” Abu Odeh said. “I don’t believe anyone other than the residents of the Gaza Strip – no one in the world – is living the life we are currently enduring.”
Aid is also affected by the heat
Among aid workers, some were able to start work before dawn to finish before the heat peaked in mid-afternoon. But others have been working in the heat, such as those operating the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings, where life-saving aid is brought into Gaza daily.
UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, reported some of its staff suffered heat injuries on Thursday.
“Everyone is a little slower,” said Scott Anderson, UNRWA deputy director of operations in Gaza. You have to rest more and drink more water, supplies are in short supply.” “It affects everything related to manual labor, because it’s so hot and there’s really nowhere to find shade.”
For the upcoming summer season, UNRWA said it will consider the possibility of opening crossings earlier in the day – as soon as it is light – for a safe break in the afternoon.
I’m afraid summer is coming
At a water cart, young children gathered right under the water fountain and danced in the overflowing drops as the adults above filled their bottles. The women, in the privacy of their shelter, took off their headscarves to dip them in water before putting them back on. Along the rows of tents, people relaxed in what little shade they could find, hoping for a breeze.
And thousands of people flocked to the Mediterranean Sea to cool off — among them a 5-year-old boy named Zakaria, who told NPR that swimming in the ocean made him happy.
But for his father, who gave his name only as Haitham, the heatwave was “torture, in every sense of the word”, he said.
Even worse, he said, is the upcoming summer. “We don’t know what to do with our families, with our children,” Haitham said. We don’t know how to face this heat.” “We were very scared.”
Becky Sullivan reports from Tel Aviv. Anas Baba reported from Rafah. Aya Batrawy contributed reporting from Dubai.
