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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered 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, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. What, 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 insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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