A child in a camp for displaced persons in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, December 2023.
Naaman Omar APA images
Winter used to be a season that filled my heart with joy.
I eagerly awaited its arrival, savoring the first signs of chill in the air. There was something magical about the way the rain fell on the window and each drop brought the earth back to life.
The crisp air, permeated with the scent of moist earth and fresh leaves, brought a sense of peace.
It was a season of hope and renewal.
Inside the house, warmth enveloped us like a blanket, in contrast to the cold outside. On rainy afternoons, my mother would prepare hot tea and biscuits and we would gather around the fire as a family.
Stories flowed as easily as our laughter, and our homes became sanctuaries that protected us from the outside world.
But now winter is a scary season.
season of death
The Israeli occupation has turned my favorite season into a waking nightmare. Last winter, the sky did not bring life, but a storm of death. The bombs fell like thunder, the rain no longer held the promise of renewal and smelled of blood.
In an instant, the warmth and safety of our home was taken away and replaced with chaos and destruction.
Israel’s military operations intensified amid the increasingly cold weather. We were forced to flee from one place to another in the pouring rain and the sounds of explosions. We left with only the clothes on our backs.
The sounds of tanks, the constant noise of drones, and the terrifying screams of fighter jets drowned out everything else. There was no time to eat food, no opportunity to collect warm clothes and blankets. All that mattered was survival.
A few hours later we found ourselves on the street. I was homeless, soaking wet and shivering.
That’s when the real nightmare began.
Just endless cold
Of all the horrors I faced during this genocide, nothing compares to the coldness of that night so close to the ocean. There was no shelter, no fire to ward off the cold. I remember sitting in the dark and the wind cutting through me like shards of glass. My body went numb, my skin turned purple and blue, and the sharp pain was unbearable.
The rain seeped into our makeshift tent, turning the ground below into a quagmire. The cold attacked my body mercilessly, leaving me helpless. My fingers were so stiff that I couldn’t move, and all I could do was rub my hands together and pray for the warmth I’d never felt before.
I wanted something as simple as a blanket, something that I could just wrap myself in and keep out the cold.
But even that small comfort was a distant luxury.
That night was a blur of misery. Others crowded around me, shivering and seeking some warmth. I searched for a light of hope in the darkness. There was nothing there, only endless cold.
I cursed my profession.
When winter finally passed, there was a brief sense of relief, as if the cold had taken away some of our suffering. But the massacre continues, and a new winter approaches.
The fear grows with each passing day. Fear of reliving that nightmare, of being swallowed up by the cold again. As the cold weather returns, I find myself asking the same questions over and over again.
When will this end?
Shahad Ali is a student of English Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza.
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