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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned 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 a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know 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 true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure 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 compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. 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—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism