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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements 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

Locals call 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 shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism