Doctors, lawyers, and teachers in Gaza have converted tents into makeshift offices to maintain livelihoods after Israeli bombing destroyed their clinics and workplaces.
By Adam Makins·
Dr Mohammed al-Khalidi once ran a thriving prosthetics clinic in Rafah. Today, he sees patients from a canvas tent in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza. His original clinic on al-Bahr Street was destroyed in April 2024. Two more followed. Now, with salvaged medical equipment crammed into a modest tent, he treats patients who desperately need prosthetic limbs and orthotic devices.
“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 told Al Jazeera.
His story is not unique. Across Gaza, a grim new normal has emerged: professionals converting tents into offices, surgeries, and shops. Lawyers meet clients inside canvas walls. Teachers instruct children without seats or ventilation. Accountants balance ledgers amid market noise.
More than four-in-five buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since October 2023, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Between 5,000 and 6,000 people have undergone amputations during the same period. Schools have been leveled. Clinics have vanished. The physical infrastructure that Gaza’s professionals depended on simply no longer exists.
This catastrophic destruction created an unprecedented crisis: nowhere to work. With rental prices skyrocketing to more than 10 times pre-war levels, most professionals cannot afford alternative spaces. A tent became the only viable option. Omar al-Tawashi, a civil engineer, watched his office disappear in August 2024, followed by his home in July 2025. He now works from a tent in Deir el-Balah, managing construction audits in an environment utterly unsuitable for technical work.
“My move to a tent was not a professional choice,” he explained. “It was a direct result of the destruction of the place where I used to work, compounded by the rental crisis.”
Teacher Palestine Hussein faced a similar reckoning. She built an educational center in Bureij over years of dedication. An Israeli air raid destroyed it in seconds. She now teaches English from a tent at al-Balata refugee camp, lacking chairs, ventilation, or protection from heat and noise.
Yet these professionals continue working. Mahmoud Shaheen, an accountant, receives clients in a small tent surrounded by market vendors and noise. Khalil al-Tahrawi, a clothing trader, displays salvaged merchandise from his destroyed shop, removing inventory each night to prevent theft. They work despite conditions that would discourage most.
The stakes are existential. Stopping work means losing income entirely. These are not luxuries or preferences; they are survival. Patients cannot always wait for “normal conditions” to return. Children need education now. Businesses must generate revenue today.
Yet the challenges remain severe. Unreliable electricity, limited internet connectivity, and equipment shortages complicate every task. The news emerging from Gaza reveals not just physical destruction but the systematic dismantling of professional infrastructure that took decades to build.
Customer consumption patterns have shifted too. People seek specific services in specific camps or towns, often encountering prices more inflated than before Israel’s October 2023 offensive. A 24-year-old IT worker, Mohammed Zweid, observed that accessing professionals in tents is better than having no service at all. But is survival really the same as recovery?
These tent offices represent more than temporary solutions. They symbolize Palestinian determination to maintain professional dignity under impossible circumstances. A doctor treating amputees from canvas walls. A teacher instructing displaced children without basic supplies. An accountant balancing books amid market chaos.
They work because stopping means collapse. They persist because their communities need them. Yet every tent is also a testimony to devastation, a reminder of what was lost and what remains uncertain about Gaza’s future.
When the ceasefire holds news and bombing decreases, more tents emerge. Reconstruction is supposed to follow destruction, but what happens when professionals must rebuild their entire livelihoods from canvas and will alone?
Source: Al Jazeera
How much can human resilience accomplish when the basic infrastructure of professional life has been systematically eliminated?
