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The clock read around 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I returned home in Gaza City. A strong wind was blowing, making it impossible to remain any longer, so I had to walk. Initially, it was just a gentle sprinkle, but a short distance later the rain intensified abruptly. That wasn’t surprising. I took shelter by a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling baked goods. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. A deep chill permeated the air.

A Walk Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, canvas structures flanked both sides of the road. No sounds of conversation came from inside them, just the noise of falling water and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to light my way. My mind continually drifted to those sheltering inside: What are they doing now? What thoughts fill their minds? How do they feel? The cold was piercing. I pictured children huddled under damp covers, parents moving restlessly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the cold metal served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I stepped inside my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of having a roof when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Darkness Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, makeshift covers on damaged glass whipped and strained, while tin roofing broke away and fell with a clatter. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, cutting through the darkness. I felt totally incapable.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been relentless. Chilly, dense, and propelled by strong winds, it has soaked tents, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “poor conditions”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Locals call this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the 40 coldest and harshest days of winter, beginning in late December and continuing through the end of January. It is the real onset of winter, the moment when the season shows its true power. Ordinarily, it is endured with preparation and shelter. Currently, Gaza has neither. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. Early on the 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 are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes weakened by months of bombardment and ultimately defeated by winter rain. In recent days, an infant in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Passing by the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Flimsy tarpaulins strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step reminded me how vulnerable these tents are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for countless individuals living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

Most of these people have already been displaced, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods razed. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come lacking adequate housing, without electricity, without heating.

Students in the Storm

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not mere statistics; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity unreliable. Countless learners have already experienced bereavement. Most have seen their houses destroyed. Yet they continue their education. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would usually be routine academic practices—tasks, schedules—turn into questions of conscience, shaped each day by anxiety over students’ well-being, comfort and access to shelter.

When the storm rages, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Is their shelter holding? Is there heat? Did the wind tear through their shelter while they were trying to sleep? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is a lack of heat. With electricity mostly absent and fuel scarce, warmth comes mainly from bundling up and using any remaining covers. Even so, cold nights are intolerable. What, then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Agencies state that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including insulated tents, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported delivering coverings, shelters and sleeping materials to thousands of families. On the ground, however, this assistance was widely experienced as inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that did little against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Tents collapse. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza understand this failure not as bad luck, but as neglect. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to make do, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Solutions exist, but are kept out.

A Symbolic Season

The aspect that renders this pain especially agonizing is how preventable it is. No one should have to study, raise children, or fight illness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain damaging their precious phone. Rain reveals just how vulnerable survival is. It tests bodies worn down by pressure, weariness, and sorrow.

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