🔗 Share this article

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Above it all 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 drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of 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 cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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