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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all 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, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I imagined children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while corrugated metal broke away and fell with a clatter. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, shattering the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, flooded makeshift camps and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes weakened by months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Not long ago, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I observed the results up close. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. 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 repeatedly. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Do they feel any warmth? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are increasing.

This goes beyond an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques 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 disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism