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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing 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 falling water and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers 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 totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. 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 “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This year's chill aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism