🔗 Share this article

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with 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 lasting until 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. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. 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 usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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