🔗 Share this article

It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down 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 torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched 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 is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism