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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along 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 roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism