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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk 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, just the noise of torrential rain and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows billowed and tore, while tin roofing broke away and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures 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, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already suffered personal loss. 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—tasks, schedules—transform into moral negotiations, dictated every moment by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I cannot help but wonder about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are prevented from arriving.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how unnecessary it should be. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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