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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest 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 shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated 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 a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism