🔗 Share this article

The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. 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, 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 damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, 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; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism