🔗 Share this article

It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism