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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children huddled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start 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 deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by 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.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of 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 overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury 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 mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism