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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps 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.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism