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The clock read 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. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling baked goods. We spoke briefly during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly 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 brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets ripped free and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, shattering the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, 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 fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are increasing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable 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 reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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