The time now… thunder still mixes with the sounds of explosions in Rafah and eastern Khan Younis. The night is heavy, the sky pours its anger, and the shadow of war hangs over us— even though they say there is a “ceasefire.”
Yes, they stopped the gunfire… but they did not stop our fear, nor our cold, nor our pain. The world has already begun to forget Gaza again, as if pressing a button can erase our existence from their screens… while we are still here, fighting for another day of life.
Winter here is sometimes harsher than war. Three winters have passed over us, and each one feels like a new test of the heart. The rain shows no mercy, the tents do not hold, and the cold enters the bones without asking permission. No electricity, no heating, no gas, and not even enough winter clothes for our children. Only shivering bodies and souls trying to stay standing despite the heartbreak.
And the memory returns—one I can never erase—from last winter.
A night when the sky poured endlessly, as if furious with everything. Our tent began flooding quickly. I grabbed my baby girl, only five months old at the time. I held her in my arms, trying to shield her tiny body from the rain that was beating against our faces without mercy. I moved from tent to tent, searching for any dry spot, even the size of a palm.
At that moment, my eyes fell on my other two children, aged five and four. They were standing in the mud, looking at me with frightened eyes. My heart shattered as I looked at them and thought:
“If I cannot protect your little sister… how will I ever protect you?”
They moved closer to me, as if they could feel the weakness in my heart without me saying a word. I looked at them and felt the world collapsing around me… How can a father stand before his children with nothing to offer them except two arms trembling from the cold?
My wife was running beside me, trying to gather the kids, dragging soaked blankets, and shouting: “Hurry, the rain is flooding the tent!”
We were all running between the tents, searching for a place to save our children, until finally we reached our neighbor’s tent. He opened his fabric door for us without hesitation. We entered—all soaked, scared, and breathless—as if we had just escaped the end of the world.
In that moment… I felt that we were not taking shelter in a tent, but in each other.
This is resilience in Gaza… to stand together despite our weakness, to protect our children with whatever we have—even if all we have are hearts drowning in pain.
We do not want much. We want a dignified life, independence, a roof that doesn’t collapse every winter, and a simple sense of safety so we don’t fear the rain.
Gaza deserves that… and its children deserve even more.
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