🔗 Share this article

It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek 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, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. 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 descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

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 young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about 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? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism