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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist 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 Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing 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 whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness 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 lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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