🔗 Share this article

The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad 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 fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, 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 succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism