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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering 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, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 remain missing. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, 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. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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