🔗 Share this article

The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned 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 merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty 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. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. 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, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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