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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, 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 became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled 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 shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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 result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are hindered or postponed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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