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It was about 8:30 PM on a Thursday when I made my way home in Gaza City. The wind howled, forcing me inside any longer, so walking was my only option. In the beginning, it was only a light drizzle, but after about 200 metres the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, rubbing my palms together to generate a little heat. A young boy had positioned himself selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, but his attention was elsewhere. I noticed the cookies were loosely wrapped in plastic, dampened from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d find buyers before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Walk 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 roar of the wind. Rushing forward, attempting to avoid the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those taking refuge within: What occupies them now? What thoughts fill their minds? What emotions do they hold? A severe chill gripped the air. I envisioned children huddled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

As I unlocked the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a quiet but powerful reminder of the suffering faced across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I entered my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of enjoying a dry home when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Night Intensifies

In the middle of the night, the storm intensified. Outside, tarps on broken panes billowed and tore, while metal sheets broke away and slammed down. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt completely helpless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, 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

Locals call 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. Typically, it is weathered through preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has no such defenses. The frost seeps through homes, streets are deserted and people just persevere.

But the danger of winter is now very real. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams retrieved the remains of two children after the roof of a shelled home collapsed in northern Gaza, freeing five additional individuals, including a child and two women. Two people remain missing. These structural failures are not caused by ongoing hostilities, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. In recent days, an infant 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. Inadequate coverings sagged under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes were perpetually moist, never fully drying. Each step highlighted how fragile these shelters were and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and cramped refuges.

The majority of these individuals have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are gone. Neighbourhoods flattened. Winter has arrived in Gaza, but defense against it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, without heating.

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 extremely fatigued. Most attend online classes from tents; others from overcrowded shelters where solitude is unattainable and connectivity intermittent. A significant number of pupils have already suffered personal loss. Most have lost their homes. Yet they persist in learning. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—projects, due dates—transform into moral negotiations, influenced daily by concern for students’ security, heat and proximity to protection.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Are they dry? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter during the night? For those still living in apartments, or damaged structures, there is a lack of heat. With electricity largely unavailable and fuel in short supply, warmth comes primarily through wearing multiple layers and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are intolerable. How then those living in tents?

Aid and Abandonment

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza exist in makeshift accommodations. Aid supplies, including weatherproof shelters, have been inadequate. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported providing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to thousands of families. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be inconsistent and lacking, limited to band-aid measures that offered scant protection against extended hardship to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Sicknesses, hypothermia, and infections associated with damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unforeseen disaster. Winter is an annual event. People in Gaza view this crisis not as fate, but as being forsaken. People speak of how necessary items are restricted or delayed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Grassroots projects have tried to improvise, to provide coverings, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The failure is political and humanitarian. Remedies are known, but are prevented from arriving.

An Unnecessary Pain

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No one should have to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing ankle-deep in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain destroying their final textbook. Rain lays bare just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies 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 disadvantaged. In Palestine, that {symbolism