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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all 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, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured 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 Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from 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. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have 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 destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism