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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a City 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, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing 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 drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil 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, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to 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 witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, 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 individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism