🔗 Share this article

The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. 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 usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism