🔗 Share this article

The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries 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 soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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