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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered 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 Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting 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.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold 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, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, 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 cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease 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 exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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