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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated 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 envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? 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 bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness 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 exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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