🔗 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, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres 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 baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. 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 typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable 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 exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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