🔗 Share this article

It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

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. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques 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