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Updated 20:46 IST, June 29th 2024

Displaced Gazans express their despair as they seek respite from soaring temperatures

Displaced residents lack air conditioning and fans amid an electricity blackout. Temperatures are soaring above 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheit degrees).

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Palestinians on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, will mark the 76th year of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel. It’s an event that is at the core of their national struggle, but in many ways pales in comparison to the calamity now unfolding in Gaza.
Displaced Palestinians arrive in central Gaza after fleeing from the southern Gaza city of Rafah in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on May 9, 2024. | Image: (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians in displacement camps in the Gaza Strip resorted to basic means to cool down themselves and their children amid soaring summer heat on Saturday.

Women were bathing their children outside their tents due to the absence of adequate showers in most of the coastal enclave.

Displaced residents lack air conditioning and fans amid an electricity blackout.

Temperatures are soaring above 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheit degrees).

Residents in the territory say it is becoming unbearable to stay inside their tents, which are mostly made of nylon.

“The heat killed us, this tent is (like) a grave,” said Barawi Bakroun who shelters in a tent camp in the central city of Deir al-Balah.

“Death is better. It’s (the tent) a grave,” he added.

The Palestinian territory has been without electricity since Israel cut off power as part of its war on Gaza following Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7.

Israel also stopped pumping drinking water to the enclave, making living conditions tougher.

The war between Israel and Hamas has killed around 38,000 people and displaced most of Gaza's 2.3 million population, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Most of the displaced families shelter in tent camps in the southern part of Gaza amid the conditions.

Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Published 20:46 IST, June 29th 2024