🔗 Share this article

The clock read approximately 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. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened 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 razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. 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 solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism