Millions of Palestinians remain crammed into overcrowded tents, overcrowded schools and other buildings or sleeping on the streets of Gaza as Israel continues its genocidal war in the enclave despite a fragile ceasefire.
Overcrowding, poor sanitation, food and medicine shortages have made Gaza’s makeshift shelters hotbeds for infectious diseases.
“Under these circumstances, it is not possible to maintain even the minimum standards of human dignity and hygiene,” Samaher Said, protection manager for Palestine Medical Assistance (MAP) in Gaza, told Al Jazeera from southern Gaza.
“There is no stability, there is no security,” Said added, capturing the daily reality faced by displaced Palestinians.
What is life like inside a tent in Gaza?
To understand what living conditions are like in Gaza’s tents, Al Jazeera visited a camp in Deir el-Balah, the governorate with the largest number of active evacuation centers.
The living space is divided into an outdoor area and an indoor area. The outdoor section accommodates a variety of daily needs, such as cooking over an open fire, washing dishes, hanging laundry, and using the outdoor toilet. Indoor areas, on the other hand, are primarily used for sleeping and sheltering from the sun and rain.
The tent has a shaded area of 20 square meters (215 square feet) and is shared by an average of 10 people. Personal space is just 2 square meters (22 square feet). This is significantly lower than the minimum area per person recommended by UNHCR of 3.5 square meters and a height of 2 meters (6.5 feet) for adequate ventilation.
The tent itself is made from old blankets and fabric scraps, with nylon sheets suspended by ropes and supported by metal and wooden poles. These materials offer minimal protection from the rain, little privacy, and no temperature regulation in cold winters or hot summers.
“The tents set up at the beginning of the war have completely deteriorated after two years of use. They can no longer protect people from debris, summer heat and winter cold,” Said said.
An earlier report by Al Jazeera in Gaza described “extremely dire conditions in the tents”, a “summer that took its toll on the children” and mothers being “eaten by flies and insects”.
In the corners of the tent, personal belongings are stored in bags and cardboard boxes, and clothes are hung to maximize space, ready for packing in the face of Israel’s constant deportation orders and constant bombing.
kitchen space
Utensils, pots and pans are tucked away in another corner of the outdoor living space, and plastic containers hold precious drinking water.
A bonfire is being used for cooking outside, but next to it is a pile of trash containing cardboard and other materials used as fuel, releasing harmful smoke into the air and posing a health risk.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage have accumulated near the camp.
Israel has restricted access to Gaza’s two main landfill sites, Juhor Ad-Dik in the north and Al-Fukhari (also known as Sofa) in the south, where trash is typically brought.
As of February 2025, access to Sofa Landfill in the Exclusion Zone continues to be denied, preventing the transfer of solid waste from 30 temporary dump sites and a number of permanent temporary disposal sites.
“We often find ourselves in situations where we know people are living in dangerous or degrading conditions near sewage, waste disposal sites, or unsafe shelters, but we have no alternatives to offer them,” Said says.
sleeping area
Sleep arrangements are sloppy. The best people can hope for is to find a thin foam mattress to sleep on, but not every family member has one, and many end up sleeping on the ground. Put away blankets and pillows during the day.
toilet facilities
With few functioning toilets, people are forced to dig latrines or use buckets. According to MAP, on average up to 600 people are forced to share a single toilet, which is 30 times the minimum standard.
As a result, sewage and human waste flow into roads and near shelters.
Lack of sanitation and hygiene
Access to basic sanitation remains severely restricted in Gaza, especially for women.
Wafa Nasrallah, a displaced mother of two, could not afford sanitary pads and tried using rags and even diapers.
She is one of many women without access to hygiene products, and some have resorted to taking medication to stop their menstrual cycles altogether.
Even when menstruating women and girls can find water, they do not have enough water to wash or privacy in toilet facilities.
“Due to lack of clean bedding and private space, girls sleep on the bare ground during their period,” Saeed said.
Israel has disabled more than 85 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure, from wells to treatment facilities.
spread of disease
Overcrowding, lack of clean facilities, and shortages of medicines have led to the spread of preventable diseases in camps.
According to a paper published in April in the Journal of Medicine, Surgery and Public Health, Gaza is currently facing a huge number of infectious disease patients, with officially reported cases reaching 700,000.
Contaminated water sources can “spread waterborne diseases such as cholera and rubella, exacerbating the public health crisis,” with poverty, overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, contaminated food, and lack of safe drinking water all significant risk factors for cholera.
