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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes whipped and strained, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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 reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts 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 remain missing. 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. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reminded me 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.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism