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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, 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 suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, 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 struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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 fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter 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 structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

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, always damp. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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