🔗 Share this article

The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, 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 sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape 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, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, 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 most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. 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—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought 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 damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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