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The time was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, 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 “poor conditions”. 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 most bitter forty days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter aligns with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism