🔗 Share this article

The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. 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 spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Place 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 roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe 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 reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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