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The clock read approximately 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy had positioned himself selling sweet treats. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to see the road ahead. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children curled under wet blankets, parents adjusting repeatedly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the struggles borne across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, plastic sheeting on shattered windows sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and crashed to the ground. Cutting through the chaos came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been incessant. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is lived with 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 persisting to the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The cold bites through homes, streets are vacant and people merely survive.

But the danger of winter is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, recovery efforts found the victims 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 incidents are not new attacks, but the outcome of homes damaged from months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. Not long ago, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Fragile Shelters

Observing the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets sagged under the weight of water, mattresses bobbed in water and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me 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 cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

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; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. 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 been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it should not be required in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Humanitarian assistance, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. When the cyclone hit, aid organizations reported delivering tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are rising.

This cannot be described as an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are hindered or postponed, while attempts to fix broken houses are frequently blocked. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This year's chill coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism