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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. 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 Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded 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 scarce, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. 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 frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism