🔗 Share this article

It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

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. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury 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 causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, 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. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism