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It was around 8:30 PM on a weekday evening when I headed back home in Gaza City. The wind howled, and I couldn’t stay out any longer, leaving me to walk. Initially, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain suddenly grew heavier. It came as no shock. I stopped near a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy was sitting outside selling homemade cookies. We shared brief remarks as I waited, although he appeared disengaged. I observed the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I questioned if he’d have enough to sell before the night ended. The freezing temperature invaded every space.

A Trek Through a City of Tents

As I walked along al-Wehda Street in Gaza City, makeshift shelters crowded both sides of the road. An eerie silence replaced voices from inside them, just the noise of rain pouring down and the whistle of the wind. Quickening my pace, seeking escape from the rain, I turned on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. My thoughts kept returning to those huddled within: What occupies them now? What are they thinking? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I imagined children curled under wet blankets, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

When I opened the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a subtle yet haunting reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these severe cold season. I walked into my apartment and couldn't shake the guilt of possessing shelter when a multitude remained unprotected to the storm.

The Midnight Hour Intensifies

During the darkest hours, the storm grew stronger. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass billowed and tore, while metal sheets tore loose and slammed down. Cutting through the chaos came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

During recent days, the rain has been unending. Cold, heavy, and driven by strong winds, it has flooded makeshift homes, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, 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 most bitter forty days of winter, starting from late December and persisting to the end of January. It is the true beginning of winter, the moment when the season reveals its full force. Normally, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has none of these. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are empty and people just persevere.

But the peril of the season is far from theoretical. In the early hours of Sunday before Christmas, rescue operations 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 are still unaccounted for. These incidents are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and finally undone by winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis succumbed to exposure to the cold.

Precarious Existence

Observing the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets buckled beneath the weight of water, mattresses floated and clothes hung damply, incapable of drying. Each step reinforced how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold came to taking life and health for hundreds of thousands living in tents and packed sanctuaries.

A great number of these residents have already been uprooted, many repeatedly. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has arrived in 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 is a heavy burden. My students are not distant names; they are young people I speak to; smart, persistent, but deeply weary. Most attend online classes from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity intermittent. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have lost their homes. Yet they still try to study. Their fortitude is remarkable, but it must not be demanded in this way.

In Gaza, what would normally count as routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—transform into ethical dilemmas, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and ability to find refuge.

On evenings such as this, I am constantly preoccupied 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 the shells that are left, there is no heating. With electricity mostly absent and fuel in short supply, warmth comes mostly via bundling up and using the few bedding items available. Despite this, cold nights are excruciating. What, then those living in tents?

The Humanitarian Shortfall

Reports indicate that more than a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Aid supplies, including thermal blankets, have been far from enough. During the recent storm, aid organizations reported distributing tarpaulins, tents and bedding to numerous households. For those affected, however, this assistance was often perceived as patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Shelters fail. Respiratory illnesses, hypothermia, and infections caused by damp conditions are rising.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter arrives cyclically. People in Gaza interpret this shortcoming not as misfortune, but as neglect. People speak of how critical supplies are blocked or slowed, while attempts to fix broken houses are repeatedly obstructed. Community efforts have tried to make do, to hand out tarps, yet they are still constrained by what is allowed to enter. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The aspect that renders this pain especially heartbreaking is how avoidable it could have been. No individual ought 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 lays bare just how precarious existence is. It challenges health worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

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