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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening 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 merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down 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. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children curled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

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

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with 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 no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. 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 mere statistics; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This year's chill occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism