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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the moan of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and felt consumed by 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 intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, 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 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These incidents are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by 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. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

Most of these people have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are faces I recognize; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into moral negotiations, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those residing in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported distributing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to a multitude of people. In reality, 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. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are rising.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

What makes this suffering especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought 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 ruining their last notebook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism