‘My children cry all day from the heat’: Life in Gaza’s tent camps

Nimah Elyan, 45, and three of her children in the Deir el-Balah tent camp where they have lived since March [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Deir el-Balah, Gaza – It is around 7:30pm and the sun is setting when Nimah Elyan and her four youngest children return home – a beige-coloured tent in a temporary camp in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza – after trying to escape the heat by going to the beach.

“The tent in the summer is hell,” says 45-year-old Nimah as she uses a sponge and a bucket of water to wash her children who are under the age of seven. “We cannot stay inside the tent for even five minutes during the day. The heat is absolutely unbearable.”