🔗 Share this article

The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure 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 succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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