🔗 Share this article

The time was 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, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

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. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

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 bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted 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 on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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