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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in 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 endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. 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 inadequate. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, 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 bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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