🔗 Share this article

It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw 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. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey 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, merely the din of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me 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 packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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