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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist 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

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted 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.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, 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 young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

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

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

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 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 exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism