Tent Prices Go Up in Palestine’s Rafah as Hordes of Displaced Persons Flow
(AWP) - Displaced Palestinians in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, complain of the difficulties to obtain tents due to their high prices and lack of necessary items to pitch them.
During the past few days, Rafah has witnessed growing displacement by thousands of Palestinians coming from different towns of the Gaza Strip to flee the intensive Israeli bombing attacks going on for a couple of months.
Displaced Palestinians said getting a tent has become a far-fetched dream for many of them after their prices skyrocketed beyond affordability.
Bassam Abu Amsheh, who was displaced from Beit Hanon to Deir al-Balah and then on to Rafah, said, “We have been displaced to Rafah. We pitched this tent at a cost of 1,000 shekels. All prices are doubled. We managed somehow and set up this tent but without furniture or blankets to use for sleeping.”
Some of the displaced said they had to sell whatever gold, garments or blankets they had to collect the necessary money to get a tent.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) revealed that dozens of thousands of displaced Palestinians gathered in large number in Rafah, on Gaza Strip’s borders with Egypt.
The majority of those displaced persons sleep in the open due to the lack in tents, it added.