Friends Of Mosquitoes And Garbage Flyers, Gaza Refugees Stimulated By 30 Degrees

JAKARTA - For Rida Abu Hadayed, summer adds to her suffering and struggles every day to survive in the Gaza Strip which is a victim of Israeli aggression.

With temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius, dawn is often accompanied by the cries of seven hot Hadayed children in a refugee tent made of narrow nylon.

While outside the tent, the humidity is unbearable.

The only way the 32-year-old mother calms her children is to fan them using dishes or pieces of paper whatever they can find.

If he has water, he splashes it at the top of his children's bodies. But unfortunately, clean water is an increasingly rare resource in the Gaza Strip.

"There is no electricity. Nothing," said Hadayed, whose face was covered in sweat, quoted from AP, Thursday, July 3.

"They [children] can't sleep. They keep crying all day until sunset," he continued.

The hot heat in Gaza exacerbated the difficulties experienced by 2 million residents. Lack of clean water, paralyzed sanitation networks, and shrinking living spaces threaten life and have the opportunity to cause rapidly spreading disease.

The hot summer coincided with a lack of clean water for most of Gaza's population, most of whom fled in refugee tents.

Many Palestinians in the refugee enclave must go far to collect water and every drop is rationed. This condition limits their ability to wash and remain cool.

"We've just entered the summer," said Hadayed's husband, Yousef.

"And our situation is terrible," he continued.

Israel has been trying to block food, fuel, medicine, and many necessities of living things entering Gaza for nearly three months.

Israel began allowing limited aid to enter Gaza in May 2025. However, the fuel needed to pump water from wells or operate desalination factories is still blocked by Israeli soldiers.

According to a recent report by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination (OCHA), limited fuel supplies make only 40 percent of drinking water production facilities function in the Gaza Strip.

Conditions are getting worse. Based on the OCHA report published in June 2025, 93 percent of households in Gaza face water shortages.

The Hadayed family was forced to flee after the Israeli military ordered an evacuation from their hometown in eastern Khan Younis.

"Our lives in the tent are very sad. We spend the days pouring water on their heads and skin," Yousef said.

"Water is very rare. It's very difficult to get water," he continued.

A UNICEF spokesman recently said that if fuel supplies were not allowed into the refugee enclave, children would die.

"My children and I spend our days sweating," said 30-year-old Reham Abu Hadayed, a relative of Rida Abu Hadayed who also fled eastern Khan Younis.

Reham is worried about the health of her four children. "I don't have enough money to buy them medicine," he said.

For Mohammed Al-Awini, 23 years old, heat is not the worst thing. However, the crowd of flies and mosquitoes in his tent, especially at night, is the most disturbing scourge.

Without adequate waste disposal networks, garbage builds up on roads in the Gaza Strip, inviting insects and disease. The rotten smell of garbage is also smelled everywhere.

"We were awake all night, dying from mosquito bites," he said. We are the most tired people in the world," he continued.