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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, clapping my hands to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks during my pause, but his attention was elsewhere. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

As I walked along 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 whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? How do they feel? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children curled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I stepped inside my apartment and felt consumed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. 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 lived with exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season unleashes its intensity. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. 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, rescuing five others, including a child and two women. Two people are still unaccounted for. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, always damp. 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.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

A Teacher's Anguish

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from packed rooms where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—turn into questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ well-being, comfort and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Is their shelter holding? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those remaining in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using whatever blankets are left. Despite this, cold nights are unbearable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Figures show that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. Amid the last tempest, relief groups reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza understand this failure not as fate, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to find solutions, to provide coverings, yet they are still constrained by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how unnecessary it should be. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

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