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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist 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 City 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, merely the din of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly 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 harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Worsens

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas 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 Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains 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. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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