🔗 Share this article

The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan 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 is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift 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 claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, 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; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required 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.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, 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 widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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