🔗 Share this article

The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth 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 while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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