🔗 Share this article

The clock read around 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, leaving me 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 took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. 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 most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to 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 witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift 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 overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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