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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury 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 mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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