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It was around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. Gusts of wind blew, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. It came as no shock. I paused beside a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. 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 hastily covered in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Trek Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, tents lined both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My mind continually drifted to those taking refuge within: What are they doing now? What are they thinking? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under damp covers, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of enjoying a dry home when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on shattered windows whipped and strained, while tin roofing tore loose and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been unending. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, inundated temporary settlements and turned the soil into mud. In other places, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

Al-Arba’iniya

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, commencing in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has none of these. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a bombarded structure collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the consequence of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but shelter from its fury has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

Being an educator in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Many of my students have already suffered personal loss. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become moral negotiations, shaped each day by uncertainty about students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Is there heat? Has the gale ripped 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 mostly absent and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that over a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. When the cyclone hit, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to numerous households. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as inconsistent and lacking, limited to temporary solutions that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are on the upswing.

This cannot be described as an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as abandonment. People speak of how critical supplies are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they remain limited by what is allowed to enter. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how avoidable it could have been. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It strains physiques worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

The current cold season coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism