🔗 Share this article

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing 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 rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call 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 true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced 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.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective 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 surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism