🔗 Share this article

The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened 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

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism