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GAZA CITY — For hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, the shift from a brutal, unforgiving winter to the enclave’s Mediterranean summer has not brought relief. Instead, it has layered a new set of deadly hardships onto lives already upended by Israeli military action, displacement, and a collapsing humanitarian infrastructure.

When Middle East Eye first spoke to Rajaa Jendiya, a 47-year-old Palestinian widow and mother of three, in January, she described that winter as the harshest she had endured during her nearly two years of displacement. Today, with winter rains long gone, the flimsy tent that failed to shield her family from frigid cold has become a sweltering trap under the unrelenting Gaza summer sun.

“It is exactly like being locked inside a greenhouse,” Jendiya explained from the makeshift camp set up in a central Gaza City school, where she resettled after Israeli bombing destroyed her home in eastern Gaza’s Shujaiya neighborhood. “The tent traps all the sun’s rays and cranks up the heat. The temperature and humidity get so extreme that it feels like you’re suffocating — I have to leave just to catch my breath.”

Jendiya’s loss is one shared by countless families across Gaza: her husband was killed by Israeli forces in March 2024 during one of the so-called “flour massacres” that took place amid Israel’s siege and intentional starvation of northern Gaza. She is among 1.9 million displaced Gazans out of the enclave’s total 2.1 million population, according to UNICEF, the vast majority of whom rely on makeshift tents and overcrowded converted public buildings for shelter.

For these families, summer brings cascading crises that build on the instability they already face. Beyond the stifling heat, invasive disease-carrying insects have made rest nearly impossible, Jendiya says.

“All night long, mosquitoes keep us up, and as soon as the sun comes up, flies take over,” she said. “We cannot sleep at night or during the day, and the heat has brought new kinds of insects we have never seen before in our lives.”

Gaza’s geographic location along the Mediterranean Sea creates naturally hot, humid summers, with average temperatures ranging between 30°C and 32°C, and heatwaves regularly pushing readings above 35°C. For displaced Gazans living in overcrowded camps with little access to basic services, these conditions have sparked a public health emergency that disproportionately harms children.

Raw sewage often overflows around camp sites, and rotting garbage piles up in open areas, conditions that worsen dramatically as temperatures climb. Jendiya says she makes regular trips to local hospitals with her children, who have repeatedly contracted heat- and sanitation-linked illnesses, including widespread skin conditions that have spread across displacement camps. Health workers across Gaza have documented soaring rates of scabies, fungal infections, rashes, and lice, with children most severely affected.

Mona al-Mallahi, a 47-year-old displaced woman who pitched her tent on a narrow traffic island opposite Gaza’s al-Azhar University, echoes Jendiya’s account of unrelenting hardship. “There is no escape from the heat,” she told Middle East Eye. “During the day, we cannot stay inside the tent because it is unbearably hot, but outside there is no shade to protect us from the blazing sun. We spend every day searching for a way to breathe.”

Israel’s military offensive has destroyed more than 81 percent of all residential buildings across Gaza, flattening much of the Strip’s urban landscape and cutting down trees that once lined streets and public spaces. That has left tent-dwelling displaced residents fully exposed to the scorching summer sun, with no reprieve. Even after the October ceasefire came into effect, Israel continues to restrict the entry of emergency shelter materials and life-saving humanitarian relief, deepening the shelter crisis that leaves millions vulnerable.

Compounding the heat crisis is the near-total collapse of Gaza’s water infrastructure. More than 80 percent of the enclave’s water, sanitation, and hygiene systems have been damaged or destroyed, meaning running water for cooling and cleaning is a distant luxury for most displaced people.

“We are drenched in sweat from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep,” al-Mallahi said. “I would need to shower at least five times a day just to cope with the heat, but that is completely impossible. We barely have enough water for the most basic drinking and cooking needs, let alone to cool ourselves down.”

Most displaced residents collect bathing water from public taps at nearby schools or abandoned sites, while drinking water requires waiting in line for hours at charity-run water distribution trucks. The unrelenting sun has also left permanent visible marks on al-Mallahi, who lost her home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood just days before the October ceasefire, and lost her son and grandchildren in an Israeli airstrike that hit the building where they took refuge.

“At noon, it feels like hell here. The heat burns our skin. Look at my face — I was not like this before. My skin was light and clear, but now it gets darker every day, and new spots are appearing from the constant sun and heat,” she said. “I used to hear about the suffering of people living in tents and pray God would help them, but I never imagined how much they endure until I lived this myself.”

Even for Gazans who still retain what is left of their homes, conditions offer little relief from the summer heat. Emad al-Sirsawi, a father of six who lives in a damaged apartment in Gaza City’s southwestern Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, says the only advantage of having a home is a ceiling to block direct sun — everything else remains just as desperate.

“We don’t have air conditioners or even fans. Even if some of us owned these before the war, we can’t use them because there is no public electricity, and we can’t afford the electricity sold by private generators,” he explained.

Since Israel launched its full military offensive on Gaza in October 2023, fuel shortages and the destruction of most of the enclave’s electricity infrastructure have left Gaza almost entirely without reliable power. Even after the ceasefire, Gaza’s electricity authority has not been able to restore even partial consistent power for residents. Private generator operators sell limited electricity at exorbitant prices, with one kilowatt-hour costing roughly 35 Israeli shekels ($11.5), meaning most residents can only use this costly power for essentials like lighting and charging mobile phones.

The lack of power also means refrigeration is out of reach for most families. “Whatever food we have spoils by the end of the day, so we lose large amounts of what little we have,” al-Sirsawi said. “We are forced to cook every day, but we do not have cooking gas, so we have to rely on firewood even in this extreme heat.”

Al-Sirsawi summed up the shared reality for all Gazans caught in the ongoing crisis: “No one can find comfort in Gaza, neither in summer nor in winter.”

Before dawn on a Monday earlier this year, 34-year-old Palestinian mother Rana (name changed for privacy protection) fled to a local clinic in Qaryut, a small village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, when her pregnancy-related pain grew too severe to bear. After a quick evaluation, clinicians confirmed the devastating news: Rana, just six months pregnant, had gone into premature labor. With the fetus’s heartbeat still detectable, the clinic immediately called for an ambulance to transfer Rana to the larger Rafidia Surgical Hospital in central Nablus, where specialized emergency obstetric care was available.

Under ordinary conditions, the 25-minute drive from Qaryut to Nablus would have been straightforward. But this trip would turn into a hours-long race against time, shaped by the stringent movement restrictions imposed just days earlier by the Israeli military. Following an armed settler attack on the nearby village of Tell that left four Palestinians dead and two Israeli soldiers killed in subsequent clashes, the Israeli army imposed a near-total lockdown on Nablus and all surrounding towns and villages, sealing all primary and secondary access points to the city and erecting new military checkpoints across the region. For civilians and medical crews alike, crossing between villages and the main urban center has been effectively blocked, forcing even emergency vehicles onto winding, lengthy backroad detours and long waits at Israeli military inspection points.

As the ambulance carried Rana toward the Awarta checkpoint, southeast of Nablus, her condition deteriorated rapidly. She began suffering heavy hemorrhaging as the fetus descended, lost consciousness, and her skin turned deathly pale. When the ambulance reached the checkpoint, Israeli soldiers immediately shouted at the driver for operating emergency sirens and flashing lights, ordering him to shut the equipment off. When he complied, the ambulance’s oxygen supply, which Rana desperately relied on, was cut off.

Sabreen Mohsen, the Palestinian nurse traveling with Rana to the hospital, recalled the terrifying encounter in an interview with Middle East Eye. “I saw that Rana had lost consciousness, her lips had turned white, and her oxygen level had dropped to 80,” Mohsen said. She immediately began administering oxygen and started an IV to replace lost blood, all while the crew pleaded with soldiers to allow them through. When soldiers approached the ambulance, opened the doors, and searched the vehicle, Mohsen tried to explain that Rana was experiencing a life-threatening emergency. “They pointed their weapons at me and ordered me to be quiet,” she said.

For 45 full minutes, the ambulance was held at the checkpoint. As Rana fought for her life, the fetus’s heartbeat grew weaker and weaker. Before allowing the ambulance to proceed, soldiers insisted on conducting a full identity check of everyone on board, adding further minutes to the deadly delay. By the time the vehicle finally pulled up to Rafidia Surgical Hospital, Rana’s six-month-old fetus had already died.

Rana, who received two units of blood and emergency surgery to manage the miscarriage and stop her bleeding, woke hours later unaware of the loss. “I felt a deep sorrow when they told me I had lost my child,” she said. “I was waiting for his arrival, choosing names, and preparing to buy his clothes. This is our fate, to live in these conditions.” Even after reaching the hospital, Rana asked her husband and two other children to remain in Qaryut, blocked from joining her by the same movement restrictions that killed her baby. “If they treat an ambulance like this and prevent it from passing, what would they do to a regular car?” she asked.

Rana and her baby are far from isolated cases. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society confirmed that since the lockdown began, Israeli military forces have systematically obstructed ambulance crews across the Nablus region, even preventing kidney dialysis patients from reaching scheduled, life-sustaining treatment at Nablus’s main hospitals. Physicians for Human Rights reports that the entire regional ambulance network has been almost completely paralyzed by the restrictions: at least two other pregnant women have been forced to give birth inside ambulances stranded at checkpoints, a third delivered her child at a small local clinic with no specialized obstetric support, and multiple other ambulances carrying emergency patients have been turned away entirely at checkpoints.

Another 28-year-old Palestinian woman, Alia Awad, was also barred from crossing an Israeli checkpoint despite being in active labor. Her brother Ahmed told reporters that when Alia began experiencing intense contractions at the family home in Beit Furik, east of Nablus, the couple drove to the village entrance assuming soldiers would allow them to pass for the emergency. Instead, soldiers refused to open the checkpoint’s iron gate and ordered Alia to climb out of her car and walk 50 meters alone, squeezing under the gate to reach an ambulance waiting on the other side. “My sister was in labor. If she’d been delayed any longer, she would have given birth at the checkpoint,” Ahmed said. Alia has remained in the hospital since Saturday, and her newborn is currently in an incubator, though both are alive after the frightening ordeal.

Restrictions on Palestinian movement and repeated military lockdowns have been a core feature of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank for decades, but data shows that attacks and obstruction of healthcare services have risen sharply in recent years. Mohsen, who has worked as a pre-hospital nurse for 12 years, said Rana’s case was the most harrowing she has ever experienced, even after a career spent navigating Israeli checkpoints. Seven months before Rana’s case, Mohsen was forced to deliver a baby in the back of an ambulance stranded at the Qusra checkpoint south of Nablus, after soldiers blocked the mother’s access to the hospital. She also noted that Israeli settlers have targeted ambulances directly, throwing stones at medical vehicles at least twice in recent incidents.

New data from the World Health Organization underscores the scale of the crisis: the organization recorded at least 233 separate attacks on healthcare facilities and providers in the occupied West Bank in 2023. Of those 233 incidents, 165 involved ambulances, and 84 percent of those ambulance-related cases included deliberate obstruction of access, including prolonged checkpoint delays, invasive searches of emergency vehicles, harassment of medical staff, and outright restrictions on movement. Between January and June of 2024 alone, WHO recorded an additional 53 attacks on healthcare in the region.