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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. This was expected. I paused beside a tent, rubbing my palms together to draw some warmth. A young boy sat nearby selling sweet treats. We exchanged a few words during my pause, although he appeared disengaged. I saw 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. The cold seeped into everything.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

Walking down al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, merely the din of torrential rain and the whistle of the wind. As I hurried on, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those sheltering inside: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? A severe chill gripped the air. I imagined children huddled under damp covers, 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 felt consumed by the guilt of possessing shelter when so many were exposed to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm grew stronger. Outside, tarps on broken panes whipped and strained, while corrugated metal ripped free and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the desperate, terrified shouts of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been relentless. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned bare earth into mud. In other places, this might be called “inclement weather”. In Gaza, it is endured in a state of exposure and abandonment.

The Harshest Days

Palestinians know this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has no such defenses. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, recovery efforts 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. Such collapses are not new attacks, but the result of homes weakened by months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. In recent days, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis died of exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many on multiple occasions. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

Students in the Storm

In my role as a professor in Gaza, this weather causes deep concern. My students are not figures in a report; they are individuals I know; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they still try to study. Their perseverance is astounding, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—projects, due dates—turn into ethical dilemmas, shaped each day by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

When the storm rages, I cannot help but wonder about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Could the storm have shredded through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those remaining in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity scarce and fuel rare, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Reports indicate that well over a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, humanitarian partners reported providing coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. In reality, however, this assistance was often perceived as uneven and inadequate, limited to band-aid measures that were largely ineffective against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an surprise calamity. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are restricted or delayed, while attempts to repair damaged homes are consistently hampered. Local initiatives have tried to make do, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by restrictions on imports. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are withheld.

A Symbolic Season

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially agonizing is how unnecessary it should be. No individual ought to study, raise children, or fight illness standing surrounded by cold water inside a tent. No learner should dread the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain exposes just how vulnerable survival is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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