🔗 Share this article

The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams 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, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after 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.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted 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.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, 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 Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism