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The clock read around 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, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence 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.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced 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 overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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