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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a City of Tents

While traversing 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 rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. 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 fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains 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. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings 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 forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those remaining 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 unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism