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The clock read about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was only a light drizzle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. This was expected. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Place of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. There were no voices from inside them, only the sound of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those sheltering inside: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? A severe chill gripped the air. I pictured children huddled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Worsens

As midnight passed, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on broken panes sagged and flapped violently, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Above it all came the piercing, fearful cries of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

Over the past two weeks, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and lasting until the end of January. It is the definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The cold bites through homes, streets are deserted and people merely survive.

But the peril of the season is now very real. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims 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 remain missing. These structural failures are not the result of fresh strikes, but the result of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, a young child in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Inadequate coverings buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to claiming life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are lost. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not distant names; they are faces I recognize; smart, persistent, but profoundly exhausted. Most join virtual lessons from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity sporadic. Many of my students have already lost family members. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by concern for students’ well-being, comfort and ability to find refuge.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those still living in apartments, or the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel rare, warmth comes mostly via wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Figures show that over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that did little against prolonged exposure to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter comes every year. 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 reinforce weakened structures are frequently blocked. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they remain limited by restrictions on imports. 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 preventable it is. It is unconscionable to study, raise children, or combat disease standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It strains physiques worn down by stress, exhaustion, and grief.

This winter occurs alongside the Christmas season that, for millions, symbolises warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism