🔗 Share this article

The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone 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 witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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