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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned 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 became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies 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 have not been found. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism