🔗 Share this article

The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. 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 spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from 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.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over 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 while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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