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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children nestled 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 incidents are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they continue their education. 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 questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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