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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged 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 Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, 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 damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from wearing multiple layers and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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