🔗 Share this article

It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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