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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, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Journey Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children nestled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned bare earth into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations found the victims of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, devoid of warmth.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are unbearable. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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