In Gaza, Tents Become Offices and Clinics

Khan Younis, Gaza – Dr. Mohammed al-Khalidi, a specialist in prosthetics and orthopedic devices, sits in a modest tent in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza. It has been his workplace since his clinic on al-Bahr Street in Rafah was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in April 2024. Two other clinics of his in the Old City area of Khan Younis were destroyed in May 2025.

After losing his practice three times over, al-Khalidi gathered the medical equipment that survived and moved to his new "office" — a tent — where he has received patients for the past two years.

This makeshift space reflects the new reality in Gaza since the war began in October 2023. Offices, clinics and shops have been wiped out in successive airstrikes, forcing professionals to work from tents or straight from the street.

The phenomenon emerged in December 2023, after residents of Khan Younis were displaced to the narrow coastal strip between their home city and Deir el-Balah. After a ceasefire was announced for the territory in October 2025, ever more tent offices, clinics and shops have sprung up across Gaza as professionals try to keep working.

The challenges

Working under canvas poses many challenges for al-Khalidi: limited space, flickering power, intense heat and loud noise. The setting is a far cry from his former brick-and-mortar clinic, but he still considers the current arrangement better than halting his services altogether.

Demand for prosthetics in Gaza is enormous, with some 5,000 to 6,000 people having undergone amputations between October 2023 and October 2025.

"Working from a makeshift space is nothing like working in a fully equipped clinic, but for me it is still better than stopping the service," al-Khalidi told Al Jazeera. "Patients who need a prosthetic limb or an orthopedic device cannot always wait for conditions to return to normal. Some lost limbs in the war, others need follow-up or adjustments to the devices they rely on in daily life."

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), more than four-fifths of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began in 2023, creating a real-estate crisis. The shortage of office space has pushed rents beyond the reach of most practitioners in Gaza. But resilience, need and duty have driven Palestinians to adapt: tents have become places where lawyers meet clients, doctors see patients and traders sell goods.

Repeated displacement

Civil engineer and construction surveyor Omar al-Tawashi began working from home in July 2025, after his office was destroyed in an airstrike in August 2024. But his house met the same fate, forcing him to move his operations to a tent in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza.

"Moving to a tent was not a career choice. It was the direct result of my former workplace being destroyed, compounded by a rental crisis that made finding a replacement office extremely difficult," he said. "In some cases rents rose more than tenfold compared with before the war, putting a new office beyond my means."

According to al-Tawashi, a tent is not a suitable environment for technical work, but he had no alternative. "There is heat, cold and noise, and none of the privacy needed when discussing projects or reviewing technical files. But stopping work means losing my income," he said.

In the crowded market in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, accountant Mahmoud Shaheen receives clients in a small tent amid the din of vendors and passersby. Shaheen once kept the books for a company in Gaza, but the office was destroyed in an airstrike in November 2025.

"Moving to a tent was not so much a career choice as a response to the reality imposed by the war," he said.

When the new school year began in Gaza last month, tents were erected across the territory to replace schools destroyed in airstrikes or converted into shelters for displaced people.

The school year begins

Palestinian teacher Hussein was forced to adapt to this reality. She used to teach English at an education center in Bureij, central Gaza, where she had spent years building up her work. The center was destroyed in seconds, so she now teaches children from a tent in al-Balata, a camp for displaced Palestinians in Nuseirat.

The facility lacks seating for students, lacks ventilation and has nothing to block out either the noise or the heat. Even so, Hussein is determined to give the children in the camp some form of education.

"Even though the tent may seem like a temporary place, to me it represents an effort to hold on to what remains of my profession and rebuild a dream from scratch, even with the most minimal resources," she told Al Jazeera.

A new reality

Trader Khalil al-Tahrawi watched his clothing shop in Nuseirat destroyed in an airstrike in October 2023. After salvaging what remained of his stock — mostly men's T-shirts and jeans — he laid it out in a small tent in the Nuseirat market.

He pays $350 a month to rent a small patch of sidewalk to sell clothes, and every night he has to pack up his goods to keep them from thieves. "This routine makes the work even harder and drains my time and energy," al-Tahrawi said.

Repeated power cuts, patchy internet and a lack of equipment further complicate efforts by Gaza's business community to rebuild now that the bombardment has eased somewhat. Customers, too, have changed their habits, seeking out specific towns or camps for a given product or service. Often they find prices pushed higher than even during Israel's blockade of Gaza before the war.

Mohammed Zweid, 24, an IT worker, was browsing goods in a market in Nuseirat. "Finding a professional in a tent or a temporary space is still better than having no service at all," he said. "This shift has changed not only where services are provided but also how people experience them."