🔗 Share this article

The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. 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 “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant 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 shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to 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, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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