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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, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly 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 manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal 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 having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

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

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little 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 comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence 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