🔗 Share this article

It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down 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 moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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 fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building 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 caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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