🔗 Share this article

It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away 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 relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

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 deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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