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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building 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 compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought 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 reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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