🔗 Share this article

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. 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 envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child 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. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained 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 unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism