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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been incessant. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, 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.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they continue their education. Their perseverance is astounding, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into questions of conscience, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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