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The time was about 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 I had to walk. At first, it was merely a soft rain, but following a brief walk the rain became a downpour. This was expected. I took shelter by a tent, trying to warm my hands to generate a little heat. A young boy sat nearby selling homemade cookies. We exchanged a few words while I stood there, though he didn’t seem interested. I saw the cookies were hastily covered in plastic, already soggy from the drizzle, and I wondered if he’d manage to sell them all before the night ended. The cold seeped into everything.

A Walk Through a Landscape of Tents

While traversing 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 falling water and the roar of the wind. Rushing forward, trying to dodge the rain, I switched on my mobile phone's torch to illuminate the path. I couldn't stop thinking to those taking refuge within: How are they passing the time now? What thoughts fill their minds? What are they experiencing? The cold was piercing. I envisioned children nestled under soaked bedding, parents shifting constantly to keep them warm.

Upon opening the door to my apartment, the icy doorknob served as a understated yet stark reminder of the hardships endured across Gaza in these brutal winter climate. I walked into my apartment and was overwhelmed by the guilt of possessing shelter when countless others faced exposure to the storm.

The Night Escalates

As midnight passed, the storm intensified. Outside, plastic sheeting on damaged glass sagged and flapped violently, while tin roofing broke away and crashed to the ground. Overriding the noise came the sharp, panicked screams of children, piercing the darkness. I felt utterly powerless.

For the last fortnight, the rain has been unending. Freezing, pouring, and carried by strong winds, it has drenched shelters, swamped refugee areas and turned open ground into mud. In different contexts, this might be called “bad weather”. In Gaza, it is experienced amidst exposure and abandonment.

The Cruelest Season

Residents refer to this time of year as al-Arba’iniya; the fourty most severe days of winter, starting from 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. Typically, it is endured with preparation and shelter. This year, Gaza has neither. The chill penetrates through homes, streets are deserted and people simply endure.

But the danger of winter is far from theoretical. Early on the Sunday before Christmas, civil defense teams recovered the bodies of two children after the roof of a war-damaged building collapsed in northern Gaza, saving five more people, including a child and two women. Two people have not been found. Such collapses are not the result of fresh strikes, but the outcome of homes compromised after months of bombardment and succumbing to winter rain. Earlier this month, an eight-month-old baby girl in Khan Younis passed away from exposure to the cold.

A Life in Tents

Walking past the camp nearest my home, I witnessed the impact up close. Thin plastic sheets strained under the weight of water, mattresses were adrift and clothes remained wet, incapable of drying. Each step highlighted how precarious these dwellings are and how close the rain and cold threatened life and health for a vast population living in tents and overcrowded shelters.

The majority of these individuals have already been forced from their homes, many on multiple occasions. Homes are destroyed. Neighbourhoods leveled. Winter has come to Gaza, but protection from it has not. It has come devoid of safe refuge, in darkness, lacking heat.

The Weight on Education

As a university lecturer in Gaza, this weather is a heavy burden. My students are not figures in a report; they are young people I speak to; bright, resilient, but profoundly exhausted. Most participate in digital sessions from tents; others from cramped quarters where privacy is impossible and connectivity sporadic. Countless learners have already lost family members. Most have been rendered homeless. Yet they persist in learning. Their perseverance is astounding, but it ought not be necessary in this way.

In Gaza, what would typically constitute routine academic practices—assignments, deadlines—become questions of conscience, influenced daily by anxiety over students’ security, heat and access to shelter.

During nights like these, I am constantly preoccupied about them. Do they have dryness? Are they warm? Did the wind tear through their shelter as they attempted to rest? For those residing in apartments, or what remains of them, there is no heating. With electricity scarce and fuel scarce, warmth comes primarily through donning extra clothing and using any remaining covers. Nonetheless, cold nights are excruciating. How then those living in tents?

Political Failure

Agencies state that well over a million people in Gaza live in shelters. Relief items, including thermal blankets, have been insufficient. During the recent storm, relief groups reported distributing plastic sheets, tents and mattresses to a multitude of people. For those affected, however, this assistance was frequently felt to be patchy and insufficient, limited to short-term fixes that were largely ineffective against ongoing suffering to cold, wind and rain. Structures give way. Chest infections, hypothermia, and infections linked to damp conditions are on the upswing.

This is not an unexpected catastrophe. Winter comes every year. People in Gaza view this crisis not as misfortune, but as being forsaken. People speak of how essential materials are blocked or slowed, while attempts to reinforce weakened structures are consistently hampered. Community efforts have tried to find solutions, to distribute plastic sheeting, yet they continue to be hampered by bureaucratic barriers. The root cause is political and humanitarian. Answers are available, but are prevented from arriving.

A Preventable Suffering

The factor that intensifies this hardship especially painful is how preventable it is. No individual ought to study, raise children, or battle sickness standing knee-high in cold water inside a tent. It is wrong for a pupil to worry about the rain ruining their last notebook. Rain reveals just how precarious existence is. It tests bodies worn down by anxiety, fatigue, and loss.

This winter coincides with the Christmas season that, for millions, represents warmth, refuge and care for the neediest. In Palestine, that {symbolism