🔗 Share this article

It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty 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 unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, 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. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after 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.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. 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—turn into moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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