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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a City 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, just the noise 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 illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into moral negotiations, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? 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 an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism