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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Landscape 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, just the noise of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness 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 challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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