‘It’s hell here’: displaced Gazans crowd the seaport with nowhere else to go
A family in a tent in Gaza’s seaport, June 2026
Shaimaa Eid reports in The Palestine Chronicle on 8 June 2026:
Gazan citizen Saif Al-Nasr Al-Hibl, displaced from the Al-Manshiya neighborhood in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City, now sleeps on the sands of Gaza’s seaport under a worn-out tent that he bought on credit after failing to find any place to shelter himself and his family from the fires of war.
Speaking with anguish, he said, “The temperature inside the tent is unbearable. The only reason we came here is that there is no longer any space left to pitch a tent in Gaza.” He explained that he had thought being near the sea might ease the scorching summer heat during displacement, but instead, he found the opposite: “It’s hell here.”
Al-Hibl’s tent is far from an isolated case. Gaza’s seaport, once a recreational outlet for residents and a popular destination for seaside outings, has become a refuge for hundreds of displaced families from northern Gaza, amid dire humanitarian conditions and the near-total absence of relief services or humanitarian assistance.
Al-Hibl told the Palestine Chronicle: “Nearly a year ago, evacuation orders were dropped over our heads, and quadcopters called on us to leave the area. Then the artillery shelling and live gunfire began. I had no choice but to flee in order to save my frightened children. I could not find a place in any of the displacement camps or schools, so I decided to seek refuge at the port.”
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Saif Al-Nasr has been displaced six times with his family. During that period, his home was partially destroyed. He attempted to repair it with basic materials and tarpaulins, but the occupation did not let it last long and forced him out of his home once again.
At the port, he and his family wash their clothes and kitchen utensils with seawater, while his children walk extremely long distances to fetch safe drinking water.
Across different parts of the port, despair, suffering, and poverty are etched on the faces of displaced people crowded into worn-out tents erected on sand and rocks under the harsh summer heat as genocide continues despite the declaration of a nominal ceasefire, alongside an ongoing suffocating blockade and the absence of even the most basic necessities of life.