🔗 Share this article

The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly 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 walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

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 shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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