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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. At first, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I saw the cookies were poorly packaged in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the moan of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these harsh winter conditions. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Above it all came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through 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, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, commencing in late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the threat posed by the cold is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, rescue operations 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 have not been found. These structural failures are not new attacks, but the result of homes damaged from months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, always damp. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come without proper shelter, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are individuals I know; intelligent, determined, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, dictated every moment by uncertainty about students’ safety, warmth and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is an absence of warmth. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using any remaining covers. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. In reality, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they are still constrained by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

The current cold season occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, epitomizes warmth, refuge and care for the most vulnerable. In Palestine, that {symbolism