The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.
As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled 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 brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.
As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.
During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.
Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.
But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.
Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.
The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.
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 attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.
In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.
On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?
Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.
This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.
What makes this suffering especially agonizing 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 damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.
This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism
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