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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

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 reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism