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The time was about 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We spoke briefly during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under soaked bedding, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from 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 weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those still living in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. For those affected, 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. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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