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It was about 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, leaving me to walk. In the beginning, it was merely a soft rain, but a short distance later the rain became a downpour. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, clapping my hands to fight off the chill. A young boy was sitting outside selling sweet treats. We spoke briefly while I stood there, but his attention was elsewhere. I observed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, moist from the drizzle, and I pondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

While traversing al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, only the sound of rain pouring down and the moan of the wind. Quickening my pace, attempting to avoid the rain, I activated my mobile phone's torch to light my way. I couldn't stop thinking to those huddled within: How are they passing the time now? What is their state of mind? What emotions do they hold? It was bitterly cold. I pictured children nestled under wet blankets, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the freezing handle served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Darkness Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm reached its peak. Outside, tarps on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing ripped free and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned the soil into mud. Elsewhere, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is lived with exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Palestinians know 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 definite start of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Typically, it is faced with preparation and shelter. Now, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are vacant and people simply endure.

But the peril of the season is no longer abstract. On the Sunday morning before Christmas, civil defense teams found the victims of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. Such collapses are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I saw the consequences up close. Flimsy tarpaulins sagged under the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. 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 overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many several times over. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has descended upon Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come without proper shelter, with no power, devoid of warmth.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather weighs heavily on me. My students are not figures in a report; they are faces I recognize; intelligent, determined, but profoundly exhausted. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where personal space doesn't exist and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already experienced bereavement. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—projects, due dates—become questions of conscience, shaped each day by concern for students’ safety, warmth and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I find myself thinking about them. Do they have dryness? Do they feel any warmth? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mainly from donning extra clothing and using the few bedding items available. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza reside in temporary housing. Relief items, including insulated tents, have been inadequate. Amid the last tempest, humanitarian partners reported delivering plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to numerous households. On the ground, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to short-term fixes that offered scant protection against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This goes beyond an surprise calamity. 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 repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The culpability lies in political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are kept out.

An Unnecessary Pain

What makes this suffering especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or combat disease standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. No student should fear the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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