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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, 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 suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced 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 cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. 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—become ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth 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 as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought 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 exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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