Thousands of Gazans live in tents that cannot protect them from rain and cold. They dread the winter.

We have been forced to leave our homes and live in tents in displacement camps. Soon, winter will be coming to Gaza. It does not care about war, displacement, cold or hunger. The coming winter days are full of painful questions that groan like deep wounds. As each day ends, the sunset reminds us of these wounds — children, hungry and shivering in the cold; daily confrontations with new forms of death; unknown fates; the wounded who bleed in their tents without treatment; the women who try to light wood that the evening rains have soaked; the young men who run from the beginning of the day until the end in search of water and food and a place to charge their phones; the confused men with no news due to the repeated network outages; their long sighs; the crying of the grandmothers; the prayers of an old woman (“Oh God, let us return to Gaza”); and the unknown fate and hopes of return that rise and then fade.

Our tents produce a thousand heavy questions. We are left without answers. Our tents could not protect us from the heat of the summer sun. Without heaters, blankets or warm clothes, what will protect us from the rains and chill of winter?

I remember our first night in the displacement camp last winter. It was near freezing. We were among 5,000 people in the camp who huddled in tents, without heat or warm clothes or blankets, trying to get through that bone-chilling night. Clouds began to appear in the sky and it started to rain. I became drenched and couldn’t stop crying. As I cried, I whispered to myself, “Why is it raining on me? Winter is my favorite season. I usually can’t wait for it to come.” Then I felt a lump in my throat as I remembered past winters. I remembered contemplating the winter rain and the movement of trees from a window in our house. I remembered how I loved walking in the rain along the coast, and sitting on the beach while the cold breeze softened my face. I remembered how I loved the winter and eagerly and lovingly waited for it. Back then, I didn’t know that my real heavy coat was my house. I wanted to go back there and escape to the wilds of oblivion.

Last year on the first night of winter, it was so cold that no one in my family could sleep. I saw a woman sitting at the threshold of her tent. I drank tea with my grandmother at the door of the tent but did not try to dig for a smile, and I did not see the faces of passers-by; all I saw was helplessness, suppressed tears, the oppression of men, the frailty of women, and the unknown future. I would have liked to walk, screaming among the crowd, saying, “Lord, have mercy. Will this people be able to withstand what is happening to them?”

Our people faced the enemy’s bombing, but we cannot face another winter in tents. We are not prepared for the outbreaks of childhood illnesses; we are not prepared for the diseases that will spread through the adult population due to malnutrition and our weakened immune systems.

Here in the displacement camps, I fear that whoever among us does not die because of the war will die because of illness. Everyone is tired; there is no life here. Gaza is slowly dying.

When I walked around my camp recently, I saw the exhausted eyes of the adults and heard even the little ones saying dua, asking for God’s help: “Lord, don’t forsake us.” I asked myself, “How long will we be destitute, forced to live in tents instead of the homes we thought protected us from everything?” Then my mind returned to the present. I found myself sitting in the midst of war, hoping that winter would not come this year; hoping it would not rain. During the coming winter, how many mothers will cry for their children; how many children will cry for their parents? For those children whose parents were martyred, who will support them and take care of them in the bitter cold? Parents whose children have died will hug their clothes and cry in grief.

The winter season has not yet begun, but heavy rain showers flooded our tents a few days ago, destroying what little we have, giving us a taste of what is to come. As the cold of winter approaches, our dilapidated tents are sinking into the mud. Their nylon walls are worn out from the summer heat; they offer little protection from the cold. I imagine them being brought down by a heavy rain, their tangled nylon walls drowning in the muddy river that will flow through our camp. I fear the rain will become soaked in the blood of the martyrs, the wounded drowned in the screams of grieving mothers, frightened children, and oppressed elderly people. We have no heat, blankets, or warm clothes.

Winter used to be my favorite season. Now I dread its return.

This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.