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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down 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 falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to 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 bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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