🔗 Share this article

The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, 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 cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts 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, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions 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 lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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