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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, 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 walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed 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, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations 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 result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, 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. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear 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 scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection 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 unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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