🔗 Share this article

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students 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 normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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