Nine months after the ceasefire agreement signed in early October 2025, living conditions in Gaza continue to deteriorate, and residents say despair, hardship, and anger toward Hamas are growing. One Gaza resident told Israel Hayom that the approaching heat is making life even harder for hundreds of thousands of people living in tents. “The situation is not good. Summer is coming, temperatures are rising, and people here are really suffering in tents. The situation is very hard and skin diseases are spreading in the population,” he said.
He described sanitation as catastrophic, with garbage piling up without organized removal, sewage flowing in the streets, and rats, flies, and mosquitoes affecting residents. He said viruses and illnesses are spreading at an unusually fast pace, and that the condition of babies and children is especially alarming. The shortage of safe drinking water is worsening as temperatures rise. “It is very hard to find fresh water. My children and I also lack such water. Sometimes we have to buy drinking water so we do not suffer from kidney diseases, but not everyone has the money,” he said.
According to him, the water shortage is also undermining public hygiene and increasing infections and disease. At the same time, commodity prices remain high and free aid has fallen sharply. Power cuts and the lack of cooling devices are causing food to spoil quickly. “Many people suffer serious food poisoning after eating spoiled food in the heat. There is not enough electricity to run refrigerators in homes. It has been two months since I drank cold water. We drink hot water as a routine,” he said.
The resident said many Gazans have been living in tents for nearly three years without basic conditions or any clear hope of improvement. He said the prolonged crisis has deepened resentment toward Hamas. “We are convinced Hamas cares only about its own interests, and it never cared about its own people,” he said. He also said residents fear expanded Israeli military activity beyond the yellow line, while most of the population is concentrated in a small part of the Strip. In his view, despair has gone so far that many no longer care who governs Gaza in the future, including “the Egyptians, Mohammed Dahlan from Fatah, or even if Israel returns to run the Strip as it did in the past.”
