When streets become a workplace: Gaza workers convert tents into offices

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that Gaza’s destruction and severe shortage of usable commercial space have pushed many professionals to operate from tents rather than fixed offices, clinics or shops. The article, published Oct. 10, 2026, describes this shift in Khan Younis, Deir el-Balah and Nuseirat, where displaced workers are trying to keep earning a living amid continuing damage from the war that began in October 2023.

Among those featured are Dr. Mohammed al-Khalidi, a prosthetics and orthotics specialist whose clinics in Rafah and Khan Younis were destroyed, leaving him to treat patients from a tent in al-Mawasi. Civil engineer Omar al-Tawashi and accountant Mahmoud Shaheen also moved into tent workplaces after losing offices to airstrikes. Teacher Palestine Hussein now teaches children from a tent in a displaced persons camp after her education center was destroyed, while trader Khalil al-Tahrawi sells clothing from a roadside tent after his store was hit.

The article says the wider backdrop is extreme destruction: the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has said more than four in five buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began, driving up rents and making conventional office space unaffordable. Al Jazeera presents the tent economy as a sign of both hardship and adaptation, as residents try to preserve services, income and education despite heat, noise, limited electricity and insecurity. It also notes that if bombing slows, people still face major obstacles such as power cuts, internet problems and scarce equipment.