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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing 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 remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were 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 uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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