🔗 Share this article

The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in 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. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, 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 scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism