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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

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 bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced 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 uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. 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—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? 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 a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not 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 essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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