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The time was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place 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 torrential rain and the whistle 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 sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone 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 sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from 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 distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. 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 frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism