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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk 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, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Residents refer to 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 real onset of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies 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 incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. 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 must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism