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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 walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along 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 falling water and the roar of the wind. As I hurried on, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. 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 hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, always damp. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. 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—projects, due dates—turn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

During nights like these, 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 still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. 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. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The failure is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. 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 most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism