🔗 Share this article

It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism