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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape 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, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced 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 several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, dictated every moment by concern for students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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