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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. 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. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal 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 having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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 remain missing. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported providing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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