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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist 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 Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty 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 reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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