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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered 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, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of 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 lasting until the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

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; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare 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 neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism