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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound 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 mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

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 unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism