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The time was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Escalates

During the darkest hours, 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 piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has soaked tents, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst 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 unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home 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 new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

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 remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by concern for students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures 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 understand this failure not as bad luck, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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