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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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 remain missing. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Observing the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using whatever blankets are left. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism