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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly 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 couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped 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 scarce, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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