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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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