Afrasianet - Mohamed Al Ayoubi - In a merciless summer, under a sky that blazes everything, Gaza's tents turn into furnaces that devour the painful patience of the little before the big. There, where the dreams of human shelter end, a new daily tragedy begins, with no weapon but hope scattered on the shores of the salt sea.
In a scene that rises as a witness to the epics of human patience, the tents of displacement in Gaza stand as a witness to the most painful paradoxes of the age, where the sky is clothed with a merciless sunshine and the earth glows with restless ashes.
There, where there is no wall that holds up and no ceiling that obscures, the cloth and plastic houses turn, in broad daylight, into a furnace that burns the breath before the bodies, and robs the air before the shadows.
The summer heat falls like a thunderbolt on these crowded human gatherings, painting a new Palestinian painting of torment, the most prominent title of which is: "How can we live under this hell?".
They are not only tents in which a family is shaded by the flames of the sun, but they are now fiery cellars that trap an unbearable glow inside them, which have turned into something like slow incinerators that devour the patience of the young before the old. With the dawn of each day, a relentless daily battle begins, which the displaced people fight with all their might, hoping that the scorching hours of the day will pass, and that nights will be no less harsh than the days, in an absurd summer equation in which only flames prevail.
Mothers under the "fire of seven o'clock"
In that stricken spot, precisely at dawn and the first melting strands of the sun rise, the tent fires begin to burn morally even before they ignite thermally.
There, mothers line up in invisible rows of sacrifice, distributing bewildered gazes between empty pots and children writhing their sweat on the dusty ground.
Tears flow between exhausted eyelids, while rare drops of water fall over the heads of the little ones like a faint breath of hope in a dark space.
One displaced woman, searching for words to describe the magnitude of the tragedy as she watches her young pant like wet chicks under unbearable heat, says, "The tent can only hold people for a few hours before dawn.
As soon as it is seven o'clock in the morning, the canvas space turns into a burning fireplace, smiling faces and increasing the heartbeat of fear for these juicy bodies that are about to melt."
The mothers there play the role of the waiting impulse for a drop of water that comes in the morning, gathering around the scarce robes of water that relatives reluctantly bring, to make it in the heat of winter.
The room is poured over the children's delicate foreheads to settle a momentary heat, which quickly turns into hot steam that multiplies the pain, as if they are fighting a losing battle beforehand, but their will is not broken, because the real breakdown is in the eyes of children who have nothing to do with patience.
"The adults may endure, but the little ones do not understand the meaning of the Nakba and do not understand the secret of this sin that surrounds them," says the mother as she embraces a child whose small body is almost a living ember, while raising her eyes to the sky to pray to the Creator.
Against the backdrop of this faint female voice, the groans of thousands of other children surrounded by cloth fire rise from all sides, and their innocent laughter mingles with cries of pain, making this year's summer of Gaza a human record torn between mothers' tears and the heat of the sun.
The patient between oxygen and fire
However, in the corridors of the camps scattered throughout the Gaza Strip, the suffering takes a more severe turn when it befalls exhausted bodies that cannot get up.
There, where the sick crouch on a bed of dirt and deprivation, the most vulnerable live through a double tragedy: in addition to their chronic pain and terminal illness, the summer heat comes to be an additional nightmare that traps their breathing and threatens their existence.
One of the injured, clinging to a rare oxygen cylinder as the last prop on the path of life, recounts words that shake the mountains before the tents shake.
He says with great pain, "Here I am going to die thirty times a day." This cylinder, which provides his cells with some life, alone cannot cope with this inflamed air that enters the lungs and burns them, and every breath turns into a painful adventure.
Inside the tent, which does not know the meaning of ventilation, sweat and dust collect, and heat and humidity combine to create a deadly environment for those who are already suffering from the burden of the roof.
Imagine a scene that brings together the executioner and the prisoner at the same time: a bedridden patient, his face colliding with the flames of the burning cloth, his eyes searching for a fan that didn't come, or a window that isn't there, or an air conditioner that in the dream is just a memory erased by the bombing and destruction.
Every inhale turns into a fierce battle, and every exhale is a painful cry in the face of the sky that rains nothing but fire these days.
"My exhausted body can't bear it, my tent can't stand me," says this man in a sad tone, "and the cylinder in my hand is starting to groan with me. How long will this torment last, O world?".
Beachfront... Between the illusion of survival and the bitterness of reality
In the midst of this escalating hell, when the noose of fire tightens in their chests, displaced people rush out of their fabric holes to seek another refuge that is no less dangerous but gives even a few moments of cold mirage.
They flock to the shore of the Deir al-Balah Sea, where salt waves break the harsh intensity of the sun, where the sea is the only respite from the dust of displacement, insect stings and the hell of tents.
But the scene there is not a scene of recreation or rest, but a collective cry for salvation from the furnace of day.
It is an obsessive escape from the fire-ovens to salty water that does not quench thirst but numbs the burning of the skin.
The eye sees the most touching sight in human history: men, women and children walking on the waves as if searching for themselves lost in the rush of displacement, submerging their bodies in cold water for a few moments, and then returning to the shore where fire awaits them again.
It is a dance of life and death between the burning and the cold, between a flaming land and a sea that is unmerciful but offers a glimmer of survival.
The children stand stunned as they see their mothers bathing with water that does not wash away the wounds, but soothes the noonday noise.
The parents are silent, contemplating the distant horizon, as if they are inspired by this blue space with a little hope that gives them the ability to return to their tents after sunset.
But a big question persists in every soul: What tomorrow do we return to? And what morning do we prepare? Will we wake up to a new fire or is there a spark coming from beyond the sea?
Numbers Speak with the Sound of Embers
In the midst of these tragic humanitarian details, figures stand out no less painful than what the eyes can tell. There are some 170,000 tents scattered across the Gaza Strip, sheltering nearly a million Palestinians, about half of the displaced people who have been living on scorched ground for months. These tents, which are supposed to be a refuge, are mostly worn out, punctured or torn apart by the incessant shelling, making protection from the heat a mere absurd word in international reports.
At a time when the aggression has destroyed 90% of Gaza's energy infrastructure, there is a complete lack of cooling that could save hundreds of thousands of people from the summer depression.
There is no electricity to power a single fan, not enough water to make ice or air cooling, not even primary means of sterilizing wastewater.
Staggering estimates and shocking numbers
In mind-boggling estimates, more than 850,000 displaced people in the Gaza Strip urgently need new shelter or improved accommodation.
Even more troublingly, statistics indicate that some 76.6 per cent of housing units in Gaza have been flattened or severely damaged.
This means that hundreds of thousands of families have been displaced from their homes that have shaped their memory and identity, only to find themselves under cloth tents that are not protected from the cold of winter or the heat of summer.
With outdoor temperatures between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius, the temperature of the tents exceeds these levels to unbearable levels, in the complete absence of thermal insulation and natural ventilation, and these tents become open mass graves waiting for their turn to collapse under the weight of heat and pain.
Steadfastness that is renewed with every sunset
In the midst of all this burning embers, and in the midst of these fires that eat away at the green and the dry, the Palestinian man in Gaza remains astonishing in his steadfastness.
There is always a stubborn desire to survive, not only a victory for life, but a declaration of defiance in the face of nature and the enemy alike.
Every mother burns her hands to cool her child's head, every father runs with his melted shoes to the sea to get a drop of a breeze, and every patient gasps on his bed as he breathes oxygen as if it were the last remaining soul of life, all of them With their tired bodies, they write a new story of an unbreakable will.
But the question that imposes itself strongly, and shakes the existence of every living conscience, is: How long will these tents remain ovens that do not cool?
How long will mothers continue to wit under the sun with babies who won't grow up to see a better tomorrow?
How long will medical cylinders remain incapacitated in the face of air blight, and salt water remains the last medicine for burned skin?
It is Gaza that does not die.
Patience in Gaza is running out, and the voice of man there rises from under the ashes, but it needs one answer that silences the fire: When will the rain come to extinguish this hell?!
In Gaza, tents are no longer just temporary shelters, but a symbol of a never-ending daily experience, a struggle between a life that wants to go on and a fire that wants to consume everything.
Between the summer blight and the harshness of the bombardment, and between the salty sea water and the empty oxygen cylinders, the Palestinian stands idly by but does not give up, looking at the horizon and whispering in the ear of the wind: Mercy, O world, for we can no longer endure fire upon fire, and no heat that doubles the heat of the Nakba.
It is Gaza that does not die, but it needs someone to reach out to it to take it out of the tent furnace and into the space of life.
