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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children huddled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into questions of conscience, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Humanitarian assistance, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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