🔗 Share this article

The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back 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. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along 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 torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts 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, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to 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 unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. 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—tasks, schedules—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism