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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 walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy 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 Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

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, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water 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.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. 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 normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by concern for students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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