For two sweltering days this week, as temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit, Mohammad Ayash's tent had become unbearable — so hot, he said, it was like "hell fire."
"Red-hot death. It's killing us," he said.
Like thousands of Palestinians, Ayash and his family have lived for months in a modest, hand-built tent after leaving their home to flee from Israel's seven-month military campaign.
But the tent Ayash erected — a modest triangle built against a cinder block wall, its outer walls made of blankets and cloth — was meant for the cold, rainy nights of a Gaza winter, he said. To keep him and his family dry, he had lined the tent walls with plastic, the sheets held in place by wooden boards nailed together.