🔗 Share this article

The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing 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 moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, 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

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, 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 what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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