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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal 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 having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. 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, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

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 during the night? For those remaining 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 primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing 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 student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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