🔗 Share this article

It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed 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. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know 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 true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons 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 still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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