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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Locals call 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by 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 remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded 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 in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

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 critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. 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 tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism