🔗 Share this article

It was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek 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, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

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 faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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