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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Journey Through a Landscape of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. I couldn't stop thinking 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 curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

As midnight passed, the storm grew stronger. Outside, makeshift covers on shattered windows billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing 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, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 caused by ongoing hostilities, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reinforced how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been displaced, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become ethical dilemmas, dictated every moment by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Has the gale ripped through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Even so, cold nights are unbearable. What, 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 weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It tests bodies worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism