In al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, prosthetics and orthotics specialist Dr Mohammed al-Khalidi now sees patients in a tent. His clinic on al-Bahr Street in Rafah was destroyed by Israeli bombing in April 2024, and his second and third clinics in the Old City of Khan Younis were destroyed in May 2025, according to the report. He salvaged what medical equipment he could and moved into the tent, where he has been receiving patients for the past two years.
His situation reflects a wider change across Gaza. Offices, clinics and shops have been wiped out in repeated Israeli air raids since the war began in October 2023, leaving professionals to work from tents or on the road. The trend began in December 2023, after residents of Khan Younis were displaced to a narrow strip of coastal land between their city and Deir el-Balah. It grew after a ceasefire was announced in October 2025, which, the report notes, Israel has repeatedly broken.
Clinics and engineering firms relocate into canvas
Al-Khalidi said working in a tent is far from ideal. He has limited space, unreliable electricity, and must contend with intense heat and loud noise. Still, he said the arrangement is better than suspending services altogether.
The need is pressing. Between October 2023 and October 2025, between 5,000 and 6,000 people in Gaza underwent amputations, according to the report. “Working from a temporary space is nothing like working in a fully equipped clinic, but for me, it is better than stopping the service altogether,” al-Khalidi said. He added that patients who need prosthetic limbs or orthotic devices cannot always wait for conditions to return to normal.
Omar al-Tawashi, a civil engineer and construction auditor, faced a similar loss. His office was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in August 2024. He began working from home in July 2025, but that location was also destroyed, and he moved his operations to a tent in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.
The tent does not suit his engineering work. “There is heat, cold and noise, and none of the privacy needed when discussing projects or reviewing technical files,” he said. “But stopping work would mean losing my source of income.”
Rent crisis pushes professionals into makeshift spaces
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said that more than four in five buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began. The report describes this as creating a real estate crisis. With few offices left, rents have reached levels most professionals cannot afford, and tents have become places where lawyers meet clients, doctors treat patients and traders sell goods.
Al-Tawashi said rents in some cases have risen to more than 10 times their pre-war levels. “My move to a tent was not a professional choice,” he said. “It was a direct result of the destruction of the place where I used to work, compounded by the rental crisis.”
Accountant Mahmoud Shaheen has experienced the same pressure. He once managed the accounts of a Gaza-based company, but its office was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in November 2025. He now receives clients inside a small tent in the crowded market in Nuseirat camp, in central Gaza, with the noise of vendors and passers-by around him. “Moving to a tent was not so much a professional choice as a response to a reality imposed by the war,” he said.
Teachers and traders adapt to tents and pavements
With the new school year starting in Gaza last month, tents have been set up across the territory to replace schools destroyed in air raids or to shelter displaced families. Teacher Palestine Hussein is one of those adjusting. She had taught English for years at an educational centre in Bureij, in central Gaza, which she helped build. It was destroyed in seconds during an Israeli air raid, so she now teaches children from a tent in al-Balata camp for displaced people in Nuseirat.
The classroom lacks seats, proper ventilation and protection from noise and heat. Hussein said the tent is an attempt to hold on to her profession. “Although the tent may appear to be a temporary place, to me it represents an attempt to hold on to what remains of my profession and rebuild my dream from scratch, even with the most basic resources,” she said.
Trader Khalil al-Tahrawi lost his clothing store in Nuseirat to Israeli bombing in October 2023. He salvaged surviving stock, mostly men’s T-shirts and jeans, and now sells it from a small tent in the Nuseirat market. He pays $350 a month for the patch of pavement and takes the goods away every night to protect them from thieves. “This routine makes the work even more difficult and consumes my time and energy,” he said.
Power cuts and higher prices slow recovery
Repeated power cuts, unreliable internet and shortages of equipment have made it harder for Gaza’s business community to rebuild, even during what the report describes as a relative decrease in bombing. Customers are also changing how they buy. They travel to certain towns or camps for specific goods or services, and often find prices higher than before Israel’s siege of Gaza and the war.
Mohammed Zweid, a 24-year-old IT worker, shops in a market in Nuseirat. He said that reaching professionals working in tents is better than having no service at all. “The transformation has changed not only where services are provided, but also how they are experienced,” he said.
