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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on damaged glass billowed and tore, while tin roofing ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. 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 “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, always damp. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism