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It was approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Landscape of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the roar of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while corrugated metal tore loose and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. 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 persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—become ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to temporary solutions that did little against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No one should have 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It challenges health worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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