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The time was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I headed back home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, making it impossible to remain any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly during my pause, though he didn’t seem interested. I noticed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, merely the din of falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, seeking escape from the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? The cold was piercing. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on broken panes billowed and tore, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been incessant. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, flooded makeshift camps and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, beginning in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains 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. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step reminded me how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

The Weight on Education

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but extremely fatigued. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from packed rooms where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. What about those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Agencies state that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including weatherproof shelters, have been insufficient. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions 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 on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as misfortune, but as abandonment. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are withheld.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how fragile life has become. It strains physiques worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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