🔗 Share this article

The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way 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 following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped 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 Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted 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 overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into 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. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded 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 largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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